'You have, indeed, dear Lady Chelford, been always very kind to me, and I do trust you,' replied this beautiful heiress, turning her large shadowy eyes upon the dowager, and speaking in slow and silvery accents, somehow very melancholy. 'I dare say it is very imprudent, and I don't deny that Mr. Wylder may have reason to complain of me, and the world will not spare me either; but I have quite made up my mind, and nothing can ever change me; all is over between me and Mr. Wylder--quite over--for ever.' 'Upon my life, young lady, this is being very sharp, indeed. Mr. Wylder's business detains him a day or two longer than he expected, and he is punished by a final dismissal!' The old lady's thin cheeks were flushed, and her eyes shot a reddish light, and altogether she made an angry sight. It was hardly reasonable. She had been inveighing against Miss Brandon's apathy under Wylder's disrespect, and now that the young lady spoke and acted too, she was incensed. She had railed upon Wylder, in no measured terms, herself, and even threatened, as the proper measure, that very step which Dorcas had announced; and now she became all at once the apologist of this insolent truant, and was ready to denounce her unreasonable irritation. 'So far, dear Lady Chelford, from provoking me to this decision, his absence is, I assure you, the sole reason of my having delayed to inform him of it.' 'And I assure you, Miss Brandon, _I_ sha'n't undertake to deliver your monstrous message. He will probably be here to-morrow. You have prepared an agreeable surprise for him. You shall have the pleasure of administering it yourself, Miss Brandon. For my part, I have done my duty, and here and now renounce all responsibility in the future management of your affairs.' Saying which, she rose, in a stately and incensed way, and looking with flashing eyes over Dorcas's head to a far corner of the apartment, without another word she rustled slowly and majestically from the drawing-room. She was a good deal shocked, and her feelings quite changed, however, when next morning the post brought a letter to Chelford from Mark Wylder, bearing the Boulogne postmark. It said-- 'DEAR CHELFORD,