topics at
East Lynne, I shall inform my lady that you are unsuitable for the
situation."

"I dare say!"

"And you know that when I make up my mind to a thing I do it," continued
Joyce. "Miss Carlyle may well say you have the longest tongue in West
Lynne; but you might have the grace to know that this subject is one
more unsuitable to it than another, whether you are eating Mr. Hare's
bread, or whether you are eating Mr. Carlyle's. Another word, Wilson;
it appears to me that you have been carrying on a prying system in Mrs.
Hare's house--do not attempt such a thing in this."

"You were always one of the straight-laced sort, Joyce," cried Wilson,
laughing good-humoredly. "But now that I have had my say out, I shall
stop; and you need not fear I shall be such a simpleton as to go
prattling of this kind of thing to the servants."

Now just fancy this conversation penetrating to Lady Isabel! She heard
every word. It is all very well to oppose the argument, "Who attends to
the gossip of the servants?" Let me tell you it depends upon what the
subject may be, whether the gossip is attended to or not. It might not,
and indeed would not, have made so great an impression upon her had she
been in strong health, but she was weak, feverish, and in a state
of partial delirium; and she hastily took up the idea that Archibald
Carlyle had never loved her, that he had admired her and made her his
wife in his ambition, but that his heart had been given to Barbara Hare.

A pretty state of excitement she worked herself into as she lay there,
jealousy and fever, ay, and love too, playing pranks with her brain. It
was near the dinner hour, and when Mr. Carlyle entered, he was startled
to see her; her pallid cheeks were burning with a red hectic glow, and
her eyes glistened with fever.

"Isabel, you are worse!" he uttered, as he approached her with a quick
step.

She partially rose from the sofa, and clasped hold of him in her
emotion. "Oh, Archibald! Archibald!" she uttered, "don't marry her! I
could not rest in my grave."

Mr. Carlyle, in his puzzled astonishment, believed her to be laboring
under some temporary hallucination, the result of weakness. He set
himself to soothe her, but it seemed that she could not be soothed. She
burst into a storm of tears and began again--wild words.

"She would ill-treat my child; she would draw your love from it, and
from my memory. Archibald, you must not marry her!"

"You must be speaking fro