turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had
already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that
at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim
her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.

The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys
were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian
would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject
Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory
information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden
behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling
up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha
noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr.
Dugdale's "mistiness" of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was
shaking his companion warmly by the hand.

"Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in
coming into _my_ head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him
occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover"--and a
sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure--"I shouldn't
wonder if it brought him home."

"Hush!"

"Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by,
Anne"--here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man--"what a help
he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't _he_ see the
blessing of Free-trade?"

Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and
they stepped in at the window;--Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away,
lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was
doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell
as abundant and unnoticed as rain.

"Now"--and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little
rosy chin and kissing him--"now, who will come back with us to that
grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt
Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?"

All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will,
by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a
helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them
on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving
that she had reached home alive.

Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody aske