"Good gracious, Valencia! do be reasonable! You'll go into a fit, or somebody will hear you! You know how I hate a scene. Do be good, there's a darling! Why didn't you tell me at first how much you wished for it, and I would have said yes in a moment." "Because I didn't know myself," cried she passionately. "There, I will be good, and love you better than all the world, except one. And if you let those horrid Russians hurt you, I will hate you as long as I live, and be miserable all my life afterwards." "Why, Valencia, do you know, that sounds very like a bull?" "Am I not a wild Irish girl?" said she, and hurried out, leaving Scoutbush to return to his flies. She bounded into Lucia's room, there to pour out a bursting heart--and stopped short. Lucia was sitting on the bed, her shawl and bonnet tossed upon the floor, her head sunk on her bosom, her arms sunk by her side. "Lucia, what is it? Speak to me, Lucia!" She pointed faintly to a letter on the floor--Valencia caught it up-- Lucia made a gesture as if to stop her. "No, you must not read it. Too dreadful!" But Valencia read it; while Lucia covered her face in her hands, and uttered a long, low, shuddering moan of bitter agony. Valencia read, with flashing eyes and bursting brow. It was a hideous letter. The words of a man trying to supply the place of strength by virulence. A hideous letter, unfit to be written here. "Valencia! Valencia! It is false--a mistake--he is dreaming. You know it is false! You will not leave me too!" Valencia dashed it on the ground, clasped her sister in her arms, and covered her head with kisses. "My Lucia! My own sweet good sister! Base, cowardly," sobbed she, in her rage; while Lucia's agony began to find a vent in words, and she moaned on-- "What have I done? All that flower, that horrid flower: but who would have dreamed--and Major Campbell, too, of all men upon earth! Valencia, it is some horrid delusion of the devil. Why, he was there all the while--and you too. Could he think that I should before his very face? What must he fancy me? Oh, it is a delusion of the devil, and nothing else!" "He is a wretch! I will take the letter to my brother; he shall right you!" "Ah no! no! never! Let me tear it to atoms--hide it! It is all a mistake! He did not mean it! He will recollect himself to-morrow and come back." "Let him come back if he dare!" cried Valencia, in a tone which said, "I could kill him with my own hands!"