" Mrs. Russell had then
said, "It will be better from you; it will look more like unwarranted
interference from me; but I will write, and you shall send an
accompanying line. Let me have it to-morrow."

The next morning Mrs. Surrey was not well enough to drive out, and thus
sent her note by a servant, enclosing with it the letter of June
27th,--thinking that her sister might want it for reference. When it
reached Mrs. Russell, it was almost mail-time, and with the simple
thought, "So,--Laura has written it, after all," she enclosed it in her
own, and sent it off, post-haste; not even looking at the unsealed
envelope, as Mrs. Surrey had taken for granted she would, and thus
failing to know of its double contents.

Thus the very letter which they would have compassed land and sea to
have prevented coming under his eyes, unwisely yet most fortunately kept
in existence, was sent by themselves to his hands.

Without pausing to read a line of that which his aunt had written him,
he tore it into fragments, flung it into the empty grate; and, bounding
down the stairs and on to the street, plunged into a carriage and was
whirled away, all too slowly, to the home he had left but a little space
before with such widely, such painfully different emotions.

CHAPTER XIII

"_I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more._"

LOVELACE

Just after Surrey, for the third time, had passed through the avenue of
trees, two men appeared in it, earnestly conversing. One, the older, was
the same who had met Willie as he was going out, and had examined him
with such curious interest. The other, in feature, form, and bearing,
was so absolutely the counterpart of his companion that it was easy to
recognize in them father and son,--a father and son whom it would be
hard to match. "The finest type of the Anglo-Saxon race I have seen from
America," was the verdict pronounced upon Mr. Ercildoune, when he was a
young man studying abroad, by an enthusiastic and nationally ignorant
Englishman; "but then, sir," he added, "what very dark complexions you
Americans have! Is it universal?"

"By no means, sir," was Mr. Ercildoune's reply. "There are some
exceedingly fine ones among my countrymen. I come from the South: that
is a bad climate for the tint of the skin."

"Is it so?" exclaimed John Bull,--"worse than the North?"

"Very much worse, sir, in more ways than one."

Perhaps Robert Ercildoune was a trifle fairer t