"And who ordered that beautiful thing?" inquired Rachel.

"Walter Grierson," replied Paul, fixing his eyes upon her sorrowfully,
as if he felt oppressed by that gloomy theory of his.

Nor did he fail to perceive the effect his few words had produced upon
the heart of his cousin, where there was a fluttering very different
from that of cooing turtles; for the fate of her happiness seemed to her
to be suspended on the answer to a question, and that question she was
afraid to put.

"Be patient, and learn to hear," continued the little philosopher. "Ere
yet Cheops built the Pyramids, or Joshua commanded the sun to stand
still, yea, before the first sensation tingled in the first nerve made
out of the dust, the beginnings were laid of these events of this day
and hour, and, in particular, of that one which may well astonish you
and grieve you--viz., that the locket is intended for and inscribed to
Agnes Ainslie."

"Agnes Ainslie!" repeated Rachel, with parched lips and trembling
voice, "the daughter of Mr. John Ainslie, my father's agent, to whom I
am even now going, by Mr. Grierson's command, to request him to call to
morrow for the purpose of preparing the settlement!"

"A strange perplexity of events," said Paul. "But what is this mingling
of threads to the great web of the universe, which is eternally being
woven and unwoven, unaffected by the will of man? And then these small
issues, the loss of a fortune by a man, and that of a lover by a woman,
how mighty they are to the individual hearts and affections!"