er-house
which has been described. She was only a short distance in advance.
Mr. Markland quickened his steps, as a vague feeling of uneasiness
came over him. The coincidence of the stranger and his daughter's
presence produced a most unpleasant impression.

"Fanny!" he called.

That his daughter heard him, he knew by the start she gave. But
instead of looking around, she sprang forward, and hastily entered
the summer-house. For a moment or two she was hidden from his view,
and in that short period she had snatched a letter from the table,
and concealed it in her bosom. Not sufficiently schooled in the art
of self-control was Fanny to meet her father with a calm face. Her
cheeks were flushed, and her chest rose and fell in hurried
respiration, as Mr. Markland entered the summer-house, where she had
seated herself.

"You are frightened, my child," said he, fixing his eyes with a look
of inquiry on her face. "Didn't you see me, as I turned in from the
carriage-way?" he added.

"No, sir," was falteringly answered. "I did not know that you had
returned from the city until I heard your voice. It came so
unexpectedly that I was startled."

Fanny, as she said this, did not meet her father's gaze, but let her
eyes rest upon the ground.

"Are you going to remain here?" asked Mr. Markland.

"I came to spend a little while alone in this sweet place, but I
will go back to the house if you wish it," she replied.

"Perhaps you had better do so. I saw a strange man between this and
the main road, and he seemed as if he desired to avoid observation."

Fanny started, and looked up, with an expression of fear, into her
father's face. The origin of that look Mr. Markland did not rightly
conjecture. She arose at once, and said--

"Let us go home."

But few words passed between father and daughter on the way, and
their brief intercourse was marked by a singular embarrassment on
both sides.

How little suspicion of the real truth was in the mind of Mr.
Markland! Nothing was farther from his thoughts than the idea that
Fanny had just received a letter from Mr. Lyon, and that the man he
had seen was the messenger by whom the missive had been conveyed to
the summer-house. A minute earlier, and that letter would have come
into his hands. How instantly would a knowledge of its contents have
affected all the purposes that were now leading him on with almost
the blindness of infatuation. The man he was trusting so implicitly
would