Bruce, and finally it occurred to me that my sister was
getting very much interested in him; and as I had a woeful dread of
losing her, I expostulated with her concerning the foolishness of
caring any thing for a man who had treated her in so uncourteous a
way, and I laughed at her.

"For some time after that she did not allude to him, and I had nearly
forgotten him. At last there came a letter in which Kitty said, "I
must tell you more of Mr. Bruce, if you _are_ tired to death hearing
of him; for it is really a perfect mystery. I have seen him at a
number of parties, watching me in the most earnest way, as if he
enjoyed it and still was rather ashamed. But when we meet he is just
as cool and distant as possible. Alice and I have missed his calls;
and all the way he has betrayed the slightest interest in me to any
one else is that he met a Miss Burt, who has only lived here a short
time, and to whom he had been presented a night or two before. He
asked her incidentally if she knew Miss Alice Thornton; and, when she
said she did a very little, he asked who the young lady was visiting
her. Miss Burt said she never had seen her, but some one had told her
it was a young lady Miss Thornton had met at boarding-school. "Then
she has never been here before?" said he. And Miss Burt thought not,
indeed was quite sure, as she never had heard of me. Isn't it a pity
he didn't ask some one who could tell him all about me?--and then he
could know whether he had met me, of course.'

"Now Kitty, in that same letter, confessed to me that she liked
Mr. Bruce better than any one she had ever seen, which alarmed me so
much that I remember I wrote her the most shocking scolding."

And here Miss Tennant was silent for a little while, and, when she
spoke, said,--

"I see by your faces you're quite interested; and I think the rest of
the story cannot be better told than by my reading you some of the
letters Kitty wrote to me at the time. I'd like to look them over
myself; and, if you are not in the least sleepy, I will go up to my
room and get them."

In a few minutes she returned; and after making the gas and fire a
little brighter, and taking an observation on the state of the
weather, she began to read:--

"Baltimore, Friday.

"My forlorn young sister, are you mourning over the inconstancy of
woman in general, and your sister Kitty in particular? I own up to
being very naughty, and on my knees I ask your pardon for not having
wr