brook. Should Frederic Chilton receive that letter, in less than a
week--in three days, perhaps, for he was a man prompt to resolve and
to do--he would present himself at Ridgeley to speak in his own
behalf--an event Rosa considered eminently undesirable. Certainly
Mabel's pusillanimity merited no such reward. She had no right to
question the rectitude that one she professed to love, nor her aunt
the right to act as mediator. If Mabel Aylett, with her found sense
and judgment, and her inherent strength of will, would not hold fast
to her faith in her affianced husband, and defy her brother to
sunder them, let her lose that which she prized so lightly.

If the epistle, soaking slowly there in the wet, had been committed
to Rosa's charge, she would have scorned to intercept it; would have
deposited it safely and punctually in the post-office. As it was, if
she left it alone, Frederic would never get it, and Mrs. Sutton
remain unconscious of its fate--unless some other passer-by should
perceive and rescue it from illegibility and dissolution; unless
Mabel should espy it on their return-walk, or, coming back, the next
moment, to seek her truant mate, catch sight of the snowy leaflet of
peace in its snuggery under the sedge.

A startled partridge flew over Rosa's head from the thither rising
ground, and in the belief that he was the harbinger of the approach
she dreaded, she dislodged the envelope from its covert, with a
quick touch of her little wand, and it floated down the stream.

Slowly--all too gradually at first--swinging lazily wound in the
eddies, catching, now against a jutting stone, now entangled by a
blade of grass--Rosa's heart in her throat as she watched it, lest
Mabel's footsteps should be audible upon the rocky path, Mabel's hat