er beloved John, and for all of them, because she
made sure that Hortense would never marry a virtually penniless man. And
when the work went on, and the rich fortune was unearthed after all, her
influence had caused that revelation to be delayed because she was so
confident that the engagement would be broken. But she had reckoned
without Hortense; worse than that, she had reckoned without John
Mayrant; in her meddling attempt to guide his affairs in the way that
she believed would be best for him, she forgot that the boy whom she had
brought up was no longer a child, and thus she unpardonably ignored his
rights as a man. And now Miss Josephine's disapproval was vindicated,
and her own casuistry was doubly punished. Miss Rieppe's astute journey
of investigation--for her purpose had evidently become suspected by some
of them beforehand--had forced Miss Eliza to disclose the truth about
the phosphates to her nephew before it should be told him by the girl
herself; and the intolerable position of apparent duplicity precipitated
two wholly inevitable actions on his part; he had bound himself more
than ever to marry Hortense, and he had made a furious breach with his
Aunt Eliza. That was what his letter had contained; this time he had
banished himself from that house. What was his Aunt Eliza going to do
about it? I wondered. She was a stiff, if indiscreet, old lady, and it
certainly did not fall within her view of the proprieties that young
people should take their elders to task in furious letters. But she
had been totally in the wrong, and her fault was irreparable, because
important things had happened in consequence of it; she might repent the
fault in sackcloth and ashes, but she couldn't stop the things. Would
she, then, honorably wear the sackcloth, or would she dishonestly shirk
it under the false issue of her nephew's improper tone to her? Women can
justify themselves with more appalling skill than men.

One drop there was in all this bitter bucket, which must have tasted
sweet to John. He had resigned from the Custom House: Juno had got
it right this time, though she hadn't a notion of the real reason for
John's act. This act had been, since morning, lost for me, so to speak,
in the shuffle of more absorbing events; and it now rose to view again
in my mind as a telling stroke in the full-length portrait that all his
acts had been painting of the boy during the last twenty-four hours.
Notwithstanding a meddlesome au