"Dear Julia! She seems strangely changed recently, and you would hardly know her, she is so gentle, so obliging, so amiable. You ought to have heard her plead your cause with me. She besought me almost with tears not to prove unfaithful to you, and when I convinced her that 'twas impossible for me to love another as I had Mr. Wilmot, she insisted on my writing, and not keeping you in suspense any longer.
"Dr. Lacey, if you could transfer your affection from me—, but no, why should I speak of such a thing! You will probably despise all my family. Yet do not, I beseech you, cast them off for your poor Fanny's sin. They respect you highly, and Julia would be angry if she knew that I am about to tell you how she admires a certain Southern friend, who probably, by this time, thinks with contempt of little
"Fanny Middleton."
There was no perceptible change in Dr. Lacey's manner [pg 118] after reading the heartless forgery, but the iron had entered his soul, and for a time he seemed benumbed with its force. Then came a moment of reflection. His love had been trampled upon, and thrown back as a thing of naught by her who had fallen from the high pedestal on which he had enthroned the idol of his heart's deepest affection.
"I could have pitied, and admired her, too," thought he, "had she candidly confessed her love for Mr. Wilmot; but to be so basely deceived by one whom I thought incapable of deception is too much."
Seizing the letter, he again read it through, and this time he felt his wounded pride somewhat soothed by thinking that the beautiful Julia admired and sympathized with him. "But pshaw!" he exclaimed, "most likely Julia is as hollow-hearted as her sister, and yet many dark spots on her character seem wiped away by Fanny's confession." Throwing the letter aside he rang the bell, and ordered his breakfast to be sent up to him.
That afternoon he called on Mabel Mortimer and her cousin. He found the young ladies in the drawing room, and with them a dark, fine-looking, middle-aged gentleman, whom Mabel introduced as Mr. Middleton. Something in the looks as well as name of the stranger made Dr. Lacey involuntarily start with surprise, and he secretly wondered whether; this gentleman was in any way connected with the Middletons of Kentucky. He was not kept long in doubt, for Florence, who was very talkative, soon said, "We were just speaking of you, Dr. Lacey, and Mr. Middleton seems inclined to claim you as an acquaintance, on the ground of your having been intimate with his brother's family in Kentucky."
"Indeed!" said Dr. Lacey; then turning to Mr. Middleton, he said, "Is it possible that you are a brother of Mr. Joshua Middleton?"
"Yes, sir," returned the stranger, eyeing Dr. Lacey closely; "Joshua is my brother, but for more than twenty years I have not seen him, or scarcely heard from him."
"Ah," answered Dr. Lacey, in some astonishment, and then, as he fancied there was something in Mr. Middleton's former life which he wished to conceal, he changed the subject by asking Mr. Middleton if he had been long in the city.