." The bare mention of her enemy's name has sent a flush
of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks. "But he never bestowed a
thought upon _her_."

"Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both the Misses Blake
grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking into the land of revery.

But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned, becomes filled
with a determination to sift the mystery connected with him, now, to the
end.

"Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with grave eyes
across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now, why Mr. Desmond is our
enemy."

"Oh, not _now_," says Miss Penelope, nervously.

"Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing gravity.

"It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss Priscilla,
slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my dear, even more than
us."

"_Me?_"

"Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago George Desmond
was her affianced husband. Twenty years ago, wilfully and without
cause, he deliberately broke with her his plighted troth."

"He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this revelation.

"Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my dear," says Miss
Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he certainly broke off his
engagement with her, and behaved as no man of honor could possibly
behave."

"And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time, must she not?"
says Monica, rising to her knees in her excitement, and staring with
widely-opened eyes of purest amazement from one aunt to the other.

"'Beautiful as the blushing morn,'" says Miss Priscilla, quoting from
some ancient birthday-book. "But, you see, even her beauty was powerless
to save her from insult. From what we could learn, he absolutely refused
to fulfil his marriage-contract with her. He was false to the oath he
had sworn over our father's dying bed."

Nothing can exceed the scorn and solemnity of Miss Priscilla's manner as
she says all this.

"And what did mother do?" asks Monica, curiously.

"What _could_ she do, poor child? I have no doubt it went nigh to
breaking her heart."

"Her heart?" says Monica.

"She suffered acutely. That we could see, or rather we had to guess it,
as for days she kept her own chamber and would see no one, going out
only when it was quite dusk for a solitary ramble. Ah! when sorrow
afflicts the soul, there is no balm so great as solitude. Your poor
mother took the whole affair dreadfully to heart."