the correspondence? Speak the truth, my dear boy; it shall cost you
nothing."

"Oh, Sir Miles!" cried Gabriel, earnestly, "I know nothing whatever
beyond this,--that I saw the hand of my dear, kind Miss Lucretia; that I
felt, I hardly knew why, that both you and she would not have those
people discover it, which they would if the letter had been circulated
from one to the other, for some one would have known the hand as well as
myself, and therefore I spoke, without thinking, the first thing that
came into my head."

"You--you have obliged me and my niece, sir," said the baronet,
tremulously; and then, with a forced and sickly smile, he added: "Some
foolish vagary of Lucretia, I suppose; I must scold her for it. Say
nothing about it, however, to any one."

"Oh, no, sir!"

"Good-by, my dear Gabriel!"

"And that boy saved the honour of my niece's name,--my mother's
grandchild! O God! this is bitter,--in my old age too!"

He bowed his head over his hands, and tears forced themselves through his
fingers. He was long before he had courage to read the letter, though he
little foreboded all the shock that it would give him. It was the first
letter, not destined to himself, of which he had ever broken the seal.
Even that recollection made the honourable old man pause; but his duty
was plain and evident, as head of the house and guardian to his niece.
Thrice he wiped his spectacles; still they were dim, still the tears