a
relative to lose! And, glancing at the rather peculiar hand, she
recognised it at once. She remembered likewise, to account for the black
seal, that one of the Miss Harpers had died within the year. So, whether
from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint
the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous
reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the
meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own
sitting-room.

There was not the slightest necessity for any such precaution, as the
missive contained merely these lines:--

"In my letter of yesterday--which I doubt not you have received, since I
posted it myself--I omitted to say that not even my brother is aware
of it, or of its purport; as I rarely inform any one of my own private
affairs. Though, of course, I presume not to lay the same restriction on
you. God bless you!"

The "God bless you!" was added hastily in less neat writing, as if
the letter had been broken open to do it. The signature was merely
his initials, "N. L. H.," and the date "Kingcombe Holm," which Agatha
supposed was his father's house in Dorsetshire.

Then, even there, amidst his dear home circle, he had thought of
her! Agatha was more moved by that trifling circumstance, and by the
self-restraint and silence that accompanied it, than she would have been
by a whole quire of ordinary love-letters.

He did not write again during seven entire days, and while this pause
lasted she had time to think much and deeply. She ceased to play and
talk confidentially with Tittens, and felt herself growing into a
woman fast. Great mental changes may at times be wrought in one week,
especially when it happens to be one of those not infrequent July weeks,
which seem as if the sky were bent upon raining out at once the tears of
the whole summer.

On the Friday evening, when Miss Bowen, heartily tired of her
weather-bound imprisonment, stood at the dining-room window, looking out
on a hazy, yellow glow that began to appear in the west, sparkled on the
drenched trees of the square, and made little bright reflections on the
rain-pools of the pavement,--there appeared a gentleman from the house
round the corner, carefully picking his steps by the crossing, and
finally landing at Doctor Ianson's door. It was Major Harper.

Agatha instinctively quitted the window, but on second thoughts returned
thither, and when he chanced t