he seal, and with a steady hand
that she held the note to read it. The handwriting was only too
distinct: it seemed to burn itself in upon her brain. All was over.

"Dear Margaret,--I do not know where Dr Levitt got his news; but I
believe it is true. Mrs Rowland pretends to absolute certainty about
her brother's engagement to Miss Bruce; and it is from this that
others speak so positively about it. Whatever are the grounds that
Mrs R. goes upon, there are others which afford a strong presumption
that she is right. Some of these may be known to you. They leave no
doubt in my mind that the report is true. As to the failure of
confidence in his friends,--what can be said?--unless by way of
reminder of the old truth that, by the blessing of Heaven, wrongs--be
they but deep enough--may chasten a human temper into something
divine.

"George has been very grave for the last three hours, pandering, I
fancy, what irony can be for. Your sister will not grudge him his
lesson, though afforded at her expense.

"Yours affectionately,

"Maria Young."

"Wrongs!" thought she;--"Maria goes too far when she speaks of wrongs.
There was nothing in my note to bring such an expression in answer. It
is going too far."

This was but the irritability of a racked soul, needing to spend its
agony somewhere. The remembrance of the conversation with Maria, held
so lately, and of Maria's views of Philip's relation to her, returned
upon her, and her soul melted within her. She, felt that Maria had
understood her better than she did herself; and was justified in the
words she had used. Under severe calamity, to be endured alone, evil
thoughts sometimes come before good ones. Margaret was, for an hour or
two, possessed with the bad spirit of defiance. Her mind sank back into
what it had been in her childhood, when she had hidden herself in the
lumber-room, or behind the water-tub, for many hours, to make the family
uneasy, because she had been punished,--in the days when she bore every
infliction that her father dared to try, with apparent unconcern, rather
than show to watchful eyes that she was moved,--in the days when the
slightest concession would dissolve her stubbornness in an instant, but
when, to get rid of a life of contradiction, she had had serious
thoughts of cutting her throat, had gone to the kitchen door to get the
carving-knife, and had been much disappointed to find the servants at