"Letty! How can you ask me such a question? Besides refusing, I had the small satisfaction of telling him exactly what I thought of him and his proposal. I do not think he will make such overtures to me again. Are you disappointed, Letty, that you look so strangely? Did you think, dear, I should bring you home some good news, instead of this disgraceful story?"
"No." In a low tone, and with a gesture of impatience. "I am not thinking of myself. Last week, Molly, you relinquished your love—for us; to-day you have resigned fortune. Will you never repent? In the days to come, how will you forgive us? Before it is too late, think it over and——"
"Letitia," says Molly, laying her hand upon her sister's lips, "if you ever speak to me like that again I shall—kill you."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"Mute and amazed was Alden; and listen'd and look'd at Priscilla,
Thinking he never had seen her more fair, more divine in her beauty."
—Longfellow.
It is the 2d of March—four months later (barely four months, for some days must still elapse before that time is fully up)—and a raw evening,—very raw, and cold even for the time of year,—when the train, stopping at the Victoria Station, suffers a young man to alight from it.
He is a tall young man, slight and upright, clad in one of the comfortable long coats of the period, with an aristocratic face and sweet, keen blue eyes. His moustache, fair and lengthy, is drooping sadly through dampness and the general inclemency of the weather.