"He is gone also."

"Ah, indeed! I'm sorry the matter was taken so seriously by the
young lady. It was only a joke."

"Yes. That was all; and she ought to have known it."

On the next day, Fisher, who had spent a restless night, called to
ask for Clara as early as he could do so with propriety.

"She wishes you to excuse her," said the servant, who had taken up
his name to the young lady.

"Is she not well?" asked Fisher.

"She has not been out of her room this morning. I don't think she is
very well."

The young man retired with a troubled feeling at his heart. In the
evening he called again; but Clara sent him word, as she had done in
the morning, that she wished to be excused.

In the mean time, the young lady was a prey to the most distressing
doubts. What she had heard, vague as it was, fell like ice upon her
heart. She had no reason to question what had been said, for it was,
as far as appeared to her, the mere expression of a fact made in
confidence by friend to friend without there being an object in
view. If any one had come to her and talked to her after that
manner, she would have rejected the allegations indignantly, and
confidently pronounced them false. But they had met her in a shape