“What can she mean?” murmured the lady, reading over some writing in pencil above the name. “Something to communicate of the utmost importance to the honor of the family—but here she comes. My dear Miss Halstead, I am delighted! How good of you to come. Sit down here; you will find it more comfortable.” No. Miss Eliza preferred to sit with her back to the light. It took her some minutes to compose her drapery; but at last she settled down in the crimson easy-chair, like some tropical bird in its nest, and was ready for the occasion. “Lovely weather, isn’t it?” observed Mrs. Savage, with her blandest smile. “What a color the air has given you.” “Yes,” answered Miss Eliza, tightening her glove. “My complexion is so exquisitely sensitive, that a breath of air brings the bloom to my cheeks.” Mrs. Savage smiled a graceful acquiescence to this self-praise, and hoped Miss Eliza would never feel, as she did, any lack of youthful bloom. “When the time comes,” Miss Eliza said, with a smile of conscious superiority, “I must submit, like others. But, Mrs. Savage, I came on a painful and humiliating errand; excuse me, if I am compelled to give you pain; but, after your great kindness in throwing me into the same picture with your son, I feel like a traitor till you know all.” Mrs. Savage bent her stately head, and replied that she was listening with attention. “After that evening, which seemed to give a dawning hope of union between the houses of Savage and Halstead, you will imagine, dear lady, that my thoughts, hopes, prayers, were all hovering around your son. Knowing well that our mutual passion had maternal sanction, I allowed the pent-up feelings of a too ardent nature to gush forth, till I fear your noble son saw too clearly into the state of my affections. I strove to conceal the rush of tender emotions that awoke to the sound of his very footstep; but there are souls so transparent, that a child can read them. For a time, dear lady, all was hope, all was happiness; true as the needle to the pole myself, I had profound confidence in your son. For a time his conduct was all that the most devoted heart could desire—I was his ideal, his love, his divinity. Though he was too delicate to say all this, I felt it, madam, in the very core of this heart.” Here Miss Eliza pressed a fold of a shawl that covered her bosom, and went on. “Then came a frost—a killing frost! Oh! my dear madam—mother, may I not call you? that girl—that creature—who received your bounty but to betray it, has broken in upon my pure dream of happiness. Your son has, for some time, left the refinements which circle around my home, and, regardless of breaking the heart that has learned to adore him, has given his time and his attentions to that creature.”