and that this is the pursuit
of a long meditated vengeance. At all events I'd call myself
Smith or Brown till this prejudice blows over.'"

The letter soon turned to a pleasanter theme--his application for a
leave had been favourably entertained. By October--it was then July--he
might hope to take his passage for England. Not that he was, he said,
at all sick of India. He had now adapted himself to its ways and
habits, his health was good, and the solitude--the one sole cause of
complaint--he trusted would ere long give way to the happiest and most
blissful of all companionship. "Indeed, I must try to make you all
emigrate with me. Aunt Grainger can have her flowers and her vegetables
here in all seasons, one of my retainers is an excellent gardener,
and Milly's passion for riding can be indulged upon the prettiest Arab
horses I ever saw."

Though the dangers which this letter spoke of as impending were enough
to make Florence anxious and eager for the next mail from India, his
letter never again alluded to them. He wrote full of the delight
of having got his leave, and overjoyed at all the happiness that he
conjetured as before him.

So in the same strain and spirit was the next, and then came September,
and he wrote: "This day month, dearest--this day month, I am to sail.
Already when these lines are before you, the interval, which to me now
seems an age, will have gone over, and you can think of me as hastening
towards you."

"Oh, aunt dearest, listen to this. Is not this happy news?" cried
Florence, as she pressed the loved letter to her lips. "Joseph says that
on the 18th--to-day is--what day is to-day? But you are not minding me,
aunt What can there be in that letter of yours so interesting as this?"

This remonstrance was not very unreasonable, seeing that Miss Grainger
was standing with her eyes fixed steadfastly at a letter, whose few
lines could not have taken a moment to read, and which must have had
some other claim thus to arrest her attention.

"This is wonderful!" cried she, at last. "What is wonderful, aunt? Do
pray gratify our curiosity!"

But the old lady hurried away without a word, and the door of her room,
as it sharply banged, showed that she desired to be alone.

CHAPTER XIX. A SHOCK.

NO sooner did Mrs. Grainger find herself safely locked in her room,
than she re-opened the letter the post had just brought her. It was
exceedingly brief, and seemed hastily written: