In this atrocious conduct of Raeburn's there was policy as well as natural heartlessness; for he was desirous of disgusting her with his coldness, and thus preparing the way for the addresses of Cressingham. Of this part of the villain's design, Fanny was, of course, utterly ignorant; but the quick discerning eye of love enabled her instantly to detect the brutal and ungracious manner of Raeburn, so different from what she had expected; and the discovery fell upon her spirit with the most deadly effect. She, however, made no complaint; but it was evident that the manner of her reception by her deceiver had sunk deep into her heart. Poor Fanny proceeded with the packing of her little trunk in silence--a silence interrupted only by an occasional sigh, long drawn, and heavy laden with grief. Tears, too, might have been detected stealing down her cheeks, were it not that she kept her head, purposely, too closely over the trunk to permit their being seen. In the work, too, in which she was employed, be it observed, Raeburn did not offer her the smallest assistance, but continued walking up and down the cabin, whistling carelessly, and looking at the prints with which the walls were hung. This was the scene, then, in the cabin, when Raeburn, after the lapse of a quarter-an-hour or so from the time of his first descending, suddenly, and without giving Fanny the least previous notice of his intention, went to the foot of the cabin-stair, and called loudly on Cressingham, who was on deck. Cressingham appeared at the cabin-door. "Why don't you come down?" said Raeburn. And he followed up this query with a significant wink. "Why, I waited till I should be called," replied Cressingham, with a knowing smile; at the same time commencing his descent into the cabin. "Mr Cressingham, Fanny," said Raeburn, when the former came down--"a very particular friend of mine." Fanny, before raising her head from the trunk, hurriedly wiped her eyes, and stood up to receive the stranger; but it was wholly out of the poor girl's power thus suddenly to regain her composure, or to obliterate from her countenance the traces of the miserable feelings with which her soul was agonised. These remained but too plain; and were at once detected by Cressingham, who, in place of being moved to compassion by them for the unhappy girl, looked on them as welcome indications of feelings that promised to favour his own advances; inasmuch as they bespoke a dissatisfaction on the part of Fanny, at once with her situation and with Raeburn.