al a delay.

"You know I told you," she said, trying to laugh off her nervousness,
"that something was going to happen!"

"It would be a strange condition of things where nothing did happen," I
answered; and just then the horn of the mail-carrier sounded, and the
lumbering four-horse coach rattled down the street in sight of our
windows.

"There," I said, "is your U. S. M. safe and sound, road-agents and
land-slides to the contrary and of no effect."

Very soon our letters were brought us, and my hostess, excusing herself,
retired to her room to read hers. Two hours later she sent for me to
come to her. I found her lying with a wet handkerchief folded over her
forehead and eyes. A large and thick letter laid half open upon a table
beside the bed.

"Read that," she said, without uncovering her eyes. When I had read the
letter, "My dear friend," I said, "what _are_ you going to do? I hope,
after all, this may be good news."

"What _can_ I do? What a strange situation!"

"You will wish to see him, I suppose? 'Arthur Greyfield.' You never told
me his name was Arthur," I remarked, thinking to weaken the intensity of
her feelings by referring to a trifling circumstance.

"Why have I not died before this time?" she exclaimed, unheeding my
attempt at diversion. "This is too much, too much!"

"Perhaps there is still happiness in store for you, my dear Mrs.
Greyfield," I said. "Strange as is this new dispensation, may there not
be a blessing in it?"

She remained silent a long time, as if thinking deeply. "He has a
daughter," she at length remarked; "and Benton says she is very sweet
and loveable."

"And motherless," I added, not without design. I had meant only to
arouse a feeling of compassion for a young girl half-orphaned; but
something more than was in my mind had been suggested to hers. She
quickly raised herself from a reclining posture, threw off the
concealing handkerchief, and gazed intently in my face, while saying
slowly, as if to herself: "Not only motherless, but according to law,
fatherless."

"Precisely," I answered. "Her mother was in the same relation to Mr.
Greyfield, that you were in to Mr. Seabrook; but happily she did not
know it in her lifetime."

"Nor he--nor he! Arthur Greyfield is not to be spoken of in the same
breath with Mr. Seabrook."

The spirit with which this vindication of her former husband was made,
caused me to smile, in spite of the dramatic interest of the situation.
The