er bosom heaved
violently. She looked this way and that, like a frightened deer. "But
papa? His eye is on us."

"Never deceive your father!" said the Sister, almost sternly; "but,"
darting her gray eyes right into those dove-like orbs, "give me five
minutes' start--IF YOU REALLY LOVE SIR CHARLES BASSETT."

With these words she carried off the letter; and Bella ran, blushing,
panting, trembling, to her father, and clung to him.

He questioned her, but could get nothing from her very intelligible
until the Sister was out of sight, and then she told him all without
reserve.

"I was unworthy of him to doubt him. An anonymous slander. I'll never
trust appearances again. Poor Charles! Oh, my darling! what he must
have suffered if he loves like me." Then came a shower of happy tears;
then a shower of happy kisses.

The admiral groaned, but for a long time he could not get a word in.
When he did it was chilling. "My poor girl," said he, "this unhappy
love blinds you. What, don't you see the woman is no nun, but some sly
hussy that man has sent to throw dust in your eyes?"

Nothing she could say prevailed to turn him from this view, and he
acted upon it with resolution: he confined her excursions to a little
garden at the back of the house, and forbade her, on any pretense, to
cross the threshold.

Miss Somerset came to the square in another disguise, armed with
important information. But no Bella Bruce appeared to meet her.

All this time Richard Bassett was happy as a prince.

So besotted was he with egotism, and so blinded by imaginary wrongs,
that he rejoiced in the lovers' separation, rejoiced in his cousin's
attack.

Polly, who now regarded him almost as a lover, told him all about it;
and already in anticipation he saw himself and his line once more lords
of the two manors--Bassett and Huntercombe--on the demise of Sir
Charles Bassett, Bart., deceased without issue.

And, in fact, Sir Charles was utterly defeated. He lay torpid.

But there was a tough opponent in the way--all the more dangerous that
she was not feared.

One fine day Miss Somerset electrified her groom by ordering her pony
carriage to the door at ten A. M.

She took the reins on the pavement, like a man, jumped in light as a
feather, and away rattled the carriage into the City. The ponies were
all alive, the driver's eye keen as a bird's; her courage and her
judgment equal. She wound in and out among the huge vehicles with
perfect co