w, with that nice girl. I
like her myself. When you marry her invite me to the wedding. I'll
make a sacrifice; I'll brush my hair and wash my face in honor of the
occasion."

Returning to his lodgings, Moody found two letters waiting on the table.
One of them bore the South Morden postmark. He opened that letter first.

It was written by Miss Pink. The first lines contained an urgent
entreaty to keep the circumstances connected with the loss of the five
hundred pounds the strictest secret from everyone in general, and from
Hardyman in particular. The reasons assigned for making the strange
request were next expressed in these terms: "My niece Isabel is, I
am happy to inform you, engaged to be married to Mr. Hardyman. If the
slightest hint reached him of her having been associated, no matter how
cruelly and unjustly, with a suspicion of theft, the marriage would be
broken off, and the result to herself and to everybody connected with
her, would be disgrace for the rest of our lives."

On the blank space at the foot of the page a few words were added in
Isabel's writing: "Whatever changes there may be in my life, your place
in my heart is one that no other person can fill: it is the place of my
dearest friend. Pray write and tell me that you are not distressed and
not angry. My one anxiety is that you should remember what I have always
told you about the state of my own feelings. My one wish is that you
will still let me love you and value you, as I might have loved and
valued a brother."

The letter dropped from Moody's hand. Not a word--not even a
sigh--passed his lips. In tearless silence he submitted to the pang that
wrung him. In tearless silence he contemplated the wreck of his life.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE narrative returns to South Morden, and follows the events which
attended Isabel's marriage engagement.

To say that Miss Pink, inflated by the triumph, rose, morally speaking,
from the earth and floated among the clouds, is to indicate faintly the
effect produced on the ex-schoolmistress when her niece first informed
her of what had happened at the farm. Attacked on one side by her aunt,
and on the other by Hardyman, and feebly defended, at the best, by her
own doubts and misgivings, Isabel ended by surrendering at discretion.
Like thousands of other women in a similar position, she was in the last
degree uncertain as to the state of her own heart. To what extent she
was insensibly influenced by Hardyman