The daring stroke at Mrs. Sutton's hypothesis of the inseparable

union between esteem and affection, excited her into an impolitic

admission.

"My child, you make my blood run cold! You do not mean that you

could love a man for whose character you had no respect!"

"There is a difference between learning to love and continuing to

love," said Mabel, sententiously. "But we have had enough of useless

talk, aunt. In two days more Winston will be here. Until then, let

matters remain as they are. You can tell Rosa as much or as little

as you like of what has happened. She must suspect that something

has gone awry. To-morrow, I will look up this Mr. Jenkyns, and

deliver the messages with which I am charged--likewise consult the

mason about the 'baronial' fireplace," smiling bitterly.

"You never saw another creature so altered as she is," Mrs. Sutton

bewailed to Rosa, in rehearsing the scene. "If this thing should

turn out to be true, she is ruined and heart-broken for life. She

will become a cold, cynical, unfeeling woman--a feminine copy of her

granite brother."

"If!" reiterated Rosa, testily. "There is not one syllable of truth

in it from Alpha to Omega! I know he is your nephew, and that it is

one af the Medo-Persian laws of Ridgeley that the king can do no

wrong; but I would sooner believe that Winston Aylett invented the

slander throughout, than question Fred Chilton's integrity. There is

foul play somewhere, as you will discover in time--or out of it!"

To Mabel, Frederic's spirited champion said never a word of the

event that held their eyes waking until dawn--each motionless as

sleepless lest her bed fellow should discover her real state.

"I have had no share in causing the rupture. I am not called upon to

heal it," meditated she. "In this, the law of self-preservation is

my surest guide."

Her resolve to remain neutral was sharply and unexpectedly tested

the next afternoon.

The two girls went out for a ramble about four o'clock, taking the

beaten foot-path that led through cultivated fields, and between

wooded hills, to a small post-town two miles distant. The day was

sunless, but not chilly, and when they had outwalked the hearing of

the murmur of rural life that pervaded the barnyard and adjacent

"quarters," the silence was oppressive, except when broken by the

whirr of a partridge, the melancholy caw of the crows, scared from

their feast upon the scattered grains knocked from over-ripe ears of

corn during the recent "fodder-pulling," and, as they neared it, by

the fretting of a rapid brook over its stony bottom.




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