should his life
be spared by war, that it would be many years before he should revisit
England. The sense of the letter was the more affecting in what was
concealed than in what was expressed. Evidently Lionel desired to convey
to Waife, and leave it to him to inform Sophy, that she was henceforth
to regard the writer as vanished out of her existence--departed, as
irrevocably as depart the Dead.

While Waife was reading, he had turned himself aside from Sophy; he had
risen--he had gone to the deep recess of the old mullioned window, half
screening himself beside the curtain. Noiselessly, Sophy followed; and
when he had closed the letter, she laid her hand on his arm, and said
very quietly: "Grandfather, may I read that letter?"

Waife was startled, and replied on the instant, "No, my dear."

"It is better that I should," said she, with the same quiet firmness;
and then seeing the distress in his face, she added, with her more
accustomed sweet docility, yet with a forlorn droop of the head: "But as
you please, grandfather."

Waife hesitated an instant. Was she not right?--would it not be better
to show the letter? After all, she must confront the fact that Lionel
could be nothing to her henceforth; and would not Lionel's own words
wound her less than all Waife could say? So he put the letter into her
hands, and sate down, watching her countenance.

At the opening sentences of congratulation, she looked up inquiringly.
Poor man, he had not spoken to her of what at another time it would have
been such joy to speak; and he now, in answer to her look, said almost
sadly: "Only about me, Sophy; what does that matter?" But before the
girl read, a line farther, she smiled on him, and tenderly kissed his
furrowed brow.

"Don't read on, Sophy," said he quickly. She shook her head and resumed.
His eye still upon her face, he marked it changing as the sense of the
letter grew upon her, till, as, without a word, with scarce a visible
heave of the bosom, she laid the letter on his knees, the change had
become so complete, that it seemed as if ANOTHER stood in her place. In
very young and sensitive persons, especially female (though I have
seen it even in our hard sex), a great and sudden shock or revulsion of
feeling reveals itself thus in the almost preternatural alteration of
the countenance. It is not a mere paleness-a skin-deep loss of colour:
it is as if the whole bloom of youth had rushed away; hollows never
discernible