it scarcely needs to be stated that ethel thursby's letter to launce keymer was written with the full knowledge and sanction of her aunts. when the particulars of her interview with hetty blair were told them, they could but hold up their hands in horrified amazement. their worst fears, never even hinted at to ethel, had been more than realised; there could no longer be any doubt as to the nature of the motives by which keymer had been influenced. his treatment of ethel had been bad enough, but his treatment of hetty blair revealed a depth of depravity which caused the gentle hearts of the sisters at once to shiver with affright and glow with thankfulness when they called to mind their darling's narrow escape from being united for life to such a man.

"i little thought i should live to see the day when i could truthfully say, 'i am glad our money has been taken from us,'" remarked miss matilda. "but, here and now, i can say it. to the loss of our money we owe it that ethel is not by this time mr. launce keymer's wife. it was one of those blessings in disguise at which we are prone to cavil because we fail at the time to recognise them for what they really are."

"but we ought not to forget what we owe to miss blair in the matter," suggested miss jane with that touch of deference due from her as second sister for the time being. "her revelation would of itself have more than supplied cause enough for breaking off the match."

"truly so, sister, if it had reached our ears in time; but we have no proof that it would have done so. had mr. keymer not left home, he would probably have found means to defeat her object, and, in addition, would most likely have pressed for the marriage to take place as early as possible."

"in any case, we can never be sufficiently thankful that matters have fallen out as they have. i declare my nerves are all a-tingle at the thought of what ethel has escaped."

"and i have dropped my stitch six times since she told us--a thing which never happened to me before."

"i was brought up in the belief that when men were bad--of course i mean very bad indeed--their wicked qualities rarely failed to make themselves apparent in their looks, or their manner, or--or in some other way, so that people of even ordinary discernment could be on their guard against them and not credit them with virtues they could lay no claim to. but mr. keymer had always such a pleasant, smiling, indeed, i might almost say fascinating way with him, that it seems difficult to connect him in one's thoughts with the actions of which we are now assured he was guilty."

miss jane spoke a little plaintively, like one who had lost another of the few illusions which advancing years had left her.

"i am afraid, sister," answered miss matilda, "that this notion of bad people having, as it were, the trade-mark of their evil natures stamped upon them for everybody to see, like many other of the traditions which one picks up in childhood, fails utterly when put to the proof. mr. keymer had certainly very pleasant manners and could make himself most agreeable. yet we have it on shakespeare's authority that a man 'may smile, and smile, and yet be a villain.'"

ethel had not been present while the foregoing conversation took place. after imparting to her aunts everything told her by miss blair, she had gone to her own room to write the letter which, a little later, was received and opened by mr. keymer in his son's absence.

she now came back with the letter open in her hand, and going up to miss matilda, said: "here is what i have written, dear aunt. please to read it and tell me whether it is quite what you would like me to say."

miss matilda took the letter in silence, and when she had read it passed it on to her sister. miss jane having read it, also in silence, returned it to her sister, who then cleared her voice and drew herself up a little more stiffly.

"my dear child," she said to ethel, "after a careful perusal of your epistle, i fail to see the slightest necessity for adding to it, or altering it by so much as a single word. it is severe, but not unduly so considering the circumstances which have given rise to it, and you seem to me to have nowhere overstepped that impalpable boundary which, be the nature of her communication whatever it may, no gentlewoman who respects herself can afford to ignore."

here miss matilda paused and looked inquiringly at miss jane. "i am in full accord, sister, with all that you have said," remarked the latter in reply to the look. "considering the peculiar difficulties with which the dear girl had to contend, it seems to me that she has expressed herself quite admirably."

"quite admirably," echoed miss matilda. "lucidity without verbosity should be the characteristic of all epistolary communications, and i am pleased to find that in this instance, as in so many others, our dear niece has not failed to profit by our teaching." then to ethel she said: "you had better post the letter yourself, dear, and then no eyes but your own will have cognisance of the address."

this ethel deferred doing till later in the day, when another errand would take her into the town. for the present she laid the letter aside and quietly resumed the sewing on which she had been engaged when miss blair knocked at the door. she was a shade paler than common, but perfectly composed, as, indeed, she had been when telling the sisters hetty's news. they now glanced at her and then at each other.

not for the world would either of the sisters have been willing that their dear girl should imagine their hearts did not bleed for her in her trouble, and yet they felt that her very quietude imposed upon them a certain restraint in the expression of the sympathy they were longing to give vent to. miss jane, who was the more romantic of the two and still retained a vivid recollection of several of the heroines of the rosa matilda school of fiction on which her fancy had been nourished when a young woman scarcely out of her teens, would have held it to be no more than appropriate if, at the close of her interview with miss blair, ethel had rushed into the sitting-room, her hair unbound and disordered and a frenzied glare in her eyes, and after a few incoherent exclamations, had either swooned right away, or gone off into violent hysterics. all miss jane's heroines had been addicted either to swooning or hysterics at the tragic crises of their lives, and that ethel had failed to follow so proper an example was just a trifle disappointing.

to miss matilda it seemed that the sooner ethel was encouraged to open her heart and seek from others that sympathy which, when we know it to be genuine, rarely fails to carry with it some measure of comfort, the better it would be for her. "and yet," she added to herself by way of afterthought, "it is not expected of the patient that he should probe his own wounds; it rests with others to do that. just as likely as not, the dear girl wonders and feels hurt because neither my sister nor i by as much as a word have led her on to unbosom herself to us. she is evidently waiting for me to speak, and yet how to begin, or what to say, i know not."

she let her hands drop on her lap with a faint sigh. her thimble fell unheeded on the floor. she was sitting by one of the two open windows and her gaze strayed out into the sunlit garden, while there came into her face a look of such perplexity and distress that ethel, glancing up from her seat by the other window and seeing it, felt a sudden gush of pity and remorse.

dropping her work, she rose and crossing quickly to the other window, drew a footstool close up to her aunt and sat down on it. then taking one of miss matilda's still pretty hands, she held it closely.

"dear aunt," she said, "i know that both you and aunt jane must think me a strange, cold, heartless girl because i seem so little affected by what has been told me to-day. and yet i feel it, although not perhaps in the way you think i ought to do. that, however, i cannot help. i am very much afraid that i shall shock you when i assure you that the breaking off of my engagement to mr. keymer comes as a positive relief to me. but you have taught me that the truth should never be hidden, and that is the truth. now that i look back, it seems to me as if i could never have really cared for him as i have heard and read of other girls caring for those to whom they were engaged. almost from the first moment of giving him my promise something whispered to me that i had made a mistake. i would have recalled it if i could, but i was too much of a coward to do so. i told myself that i was fickle and inconstant and did not know my own mind, and that love would grow and increase as time went on. whether it would or no, i cannot tell. i was certainly pained by mr. keymer's unaccountable silence. none of us like to feel ourselves neglected, and that was how i felt. and yet, while looking every day for a letter, my heart always gave a little bound when the postman, on his last round, failed to bring me one, and i knew that i was safe till the morrow. for all along a consciousness was working within me against which i vainly strove, that should a letter come, pressing that an early date might be fixed for my marriage, i should shrink from the prospect with something akin to terror, and what would then have happened i cannot tell. now the necessity is one that will never have to be faced."

she paused and again pressed miss matilda's hand to her cheek.

"and now, dear aunt," she resumed, "you will perhaps understand better than ever before what a strange, inconsistent creature i am, brimful of contradictions which sway me this way and that and make me a puzzle to myself. well, i have had my--my love experience, if i may call it so." an involuntary sigh fluttered from her lips. "and, dear aunts--both of you," she went on after an almost imperceptible pause, "i pray you to believe me when i say that it has left no wound behind it which time will not quickly heal. from to-day i shall be once more your own ethel and no one shall ever come between us again."

it was one of those sweet, high-flown promises which young people make with every intention of keeping them, but which, five times out six, after-events laugh to scorn.

ethel rose without a word more, and having pressed a tender kiss on miss matilda's faded cheek, would have gone, but the spinster detained her.

"my dear child," she said, "my sister and i cannot but feel gratified at your having chosen to open your heart to us in the way you have; but, indeed, it was not likely that the ethel we have known and loved from childhood should be otherwise than open and straightforward as the day. as long as you live you will have cause to feel thankful that you have escaped becoming the wife of mr. launce keymer, whose name from this hour shall be banished from our lips. and now, dear one, run away and keep your flowers company for half-an-hour before tea is brought in. the day has been a most trying one for you and the fresh air will do you good."

before leaving the room ethel crossed to miss jane and kissed her as she had her sister. "heaven bless you, sweet one!" said the spinster fervently. then, in a low voice, she added: "when i was as young as you are now i loved some one who deserted me for another. at the time i thought my heart would have broken--but it did not."

ethel quitted the room like one walking in her sleep.

aunt jane, a love-lorn maiden of eighteen! it was a picture which so took her imagination that for the time she forgot all about herself and her own affairs. no thought that perhaps in years gone by, before she, ethel, was born, cupid might have winged one of his shafts at the heart of either of her aunts had ever entered her mind, or that they might have loved, and rejoiced, and suffered in the way so many of their sex are fated to do. to her, her aunts had always been the same sweet, faded, but wholly lovable middle-aged ladies they were to-day. of late years the silver threads among their hair, and the fine lines marked by time's etching needle on their placid expanse of brow and around the corners of their eyes might have become a little more observable; but that was all. and to think that behind aunt jane's calm exterior, and a soft serenity of manner which was like that of some gracious autumnal day, lay hidden the embers--long since extinct, it was true--of one of those too common love episodes (tragedies they might in many instances be termed) which culminate on one side in vows foresworn, and on the other in a heartache so extreme that till the soft hand of time brings some relief, death itself seems the only possible cure! aunt jane had gone through all this. how strange and wonderful it seemed!

on her way upstairs she had paused at the landing window, scarcely knowing that she did so, so deep in thought was she, and there tamsin, coming out of one of the upper rooms, presently found her.

"youth and daydreams go together," said the old woman. "age has no daydreams, and all its pictures belong to the long ago."

ethel, who had heard no footsteps, started at the sound of her voice.

"but i was not daydreaming--quite the contrary," she returned. "i was thinking about something which was told me a few minutes ago--something the like of which i had never imagined." then, with a low sigh, she added: "day-dreams and i have parted company for a long, long time to come, maybe for ever."

"what wicked words are those from one who is in love and engaged to be married! fie upon you, child!"

"but i am not in love, indeed i am not, tamsin! nor have i ever been; i only fancied i was; but my eyes have been opened. and i am no longer engaged to be married."

"sakes alive! dearie! what has happened?"

"a great deal has happened--much that seems almost too incredible for belief. all is over between mr. keymer and me. i have heard that about him to-day which at once puts an end to our engagement--and i have already written to tell him so."

"now, heaven be praised for that!" ejaculated tamsin fervently. "you know i never liked him, and that i mistrusted him from the first moment i set eyes on him. glad i am that all is over between you! it was not my place to speak when i knew you had given him your promise, but times and again i said sadly to myself, 'surely, surely my rosebud was never intended for such a man as mr. launce keymer!' not once, but twenty times have i prayed on my bended knees that something might happen to stop your marriage. and now you tell me that my prayer has been answered. oh, child, child! not for years has my old heart been gladdened as you have gladdened it this day."

next moment ethel's arms were round tamsin's neck, and she was crying softly on her shoulder. her full heart could hold no more.