ls. They have not said one word of
love to each other, it is true; but the mischief seems to have been
done. Nothing may have been said, in the way of a promise of marriage,
capable of being taken hold of by the keenest lawyer who pleads in the
Brown-Stone building; but we are not sure that ever tongue spoke to ear,
or ever lip kissed back to lip, so true and enduring a betrothal as has
sometimes been signed in the meeting of two palms, when not a word had
been spoken and when neither of the pair had one rational thought of the
future.

Suddenly and without warning the curtain between the two rooms moved.
How quickly those two hands drew apart from each other, as if some act
of guilt had been doing! If any additional proof was wanting, of
something clandestine (and of course improper!) between the parties,
here it was certainly supplied. People never attempt to deceive, who
have not been playing tricks. Well-regulated and candid people, who do
everything by rule, never start and blush at any awkward _contretemps_,
never have any concealments, but tell everything to the outer world.
Privacy is a crime--all sly people are reprobates. Wicked Tom and
erring Joe!--what a gulf of perdition they were sinking into without
knowing it!

The curtain not only moved but was drawn aside, and out of it stepped
Bell Crawford. She walked slowly and deliberately, like one in deep
thought, and without a word crossed the room towards the point where her
two friends were sitting. Something in her face brought them both to
their feet. What was that something? She had been absent from them for
perhaps ten minutes--certainly not more than a quarter of an hour; and
yet change enough had passed over her, to have marked the passage of ten
twelve-months. The face looked older, perhaps sadder, more like that of
her brother, and yet less querulous, more womanly, better and more
loveable. Something seemed to have stirred the depths of her nature, of
which only the surface had been before exposed to view. The revelation
was better than the index. She was capable of generous things at that
moment, of which she had been utterly incapable the hour before. It was
probable that she could never again dash all over town in the search for
a yard of ribbon of a particular color: her next search was likely to be
a much more serious one.

The first glance at her face, and the marvellous change there exhibited,
wrought in so short a time, not only puzzled but