. "What could there be unpleasant in a letter from a
person I have not heard from for years? There, go on with your
breakfast. I expect you will hear some news when you get down into the
town, for the guns in the castle have been firing, and I suppose there
is news of a victory. They said yesterday that a great battle was
expected to be fought against Napoleon somewhere near Leipzig."

"Yes; I heard the guns, mother, and I expect there has been a victory.
I hope not."

"Why do you hope not, Ralph?"

"Why, of course, mother, I don't want the French to be beaten--not
regularly beaten, till I am old enough to have a share in it. Just
fancy what a nuisance it would be if peace was made just as I get my
commission."

"There will be plenty of time for you, Ralph," his mother said
smiling. "Peace has been patched up once or twice, but it never lasts
long; and after fighting for the last twenty years it is hardly
probable that the world is going to grow peaceful all at once. But
there, it is time for you to be off; it only wants ten minutes to nine
and you will have to run fast all the way to be in time."

When Mrs. Conway was alone she took up the letter, and turned it over
several times before opening it.

What could Herbert Penfold have written about after all these years?
Mrs. Conway was but thirty-six years old now, and was still a pretty
woman, and a sudden thought sent a flush of color to her face.
"Never!" she said decidedly. "After the way in which he treated me he
cannot suppose that now--" and then she stopped. "I know I did love
him once, dearly, and it nearly broke my heart; but that was years and
years ago. Well, let us see what he says for himself," and she broke
open the letter. She glanced through it quickly, and then read it
again more carefully. She was very pale now, and her lips trembled as
she laid down the letter.

"So," she said to herself in a low tone, "it is to him after all I owe
all this," and she looked round her pretty room; "and I never once
really suspected it. I am glad now," she went on after a pause, "that
I did not; for, of course, it would have been impossible to have taken
it, and how different the last twelve years of my life would have
been. Poor Herbert! And so he really suffered too, and he has thought
of me all this time."

For fully half an hour she sat without moving, her thoughts busy with
the past, then she again took up the letter and reread it several
times. Its conte