Kate commenced an explanation, but Fanny started up, saying:  “Please, Mrs. Miller, wait until I am gone.”

She then quitted the apartment, and sought her own room, of which Julia had been sole occupant for more than an hour.  On her return from school this hopeful young lady was pleased to find her sister absent.  Seating herself near the window, with paper and pencil, she began the composition of that letter, which, as we have said, widened the breach between Dr. Lacey and Fanny.  This unhallowed work cost her a world of pains.  Many times were the lines crossed out and rewritten, before they quite suited her.  The letter was but half completed, when Fanny was heard coming slowly through the upper hall.  Springing up, Julia darted through the window out upon the balcony, and by the time Fanny reached the room she was seated at the furthest end of the veranda, busily engaged with her forgery.

When she at last returned to the room, and tried to converse with her sister, she observed that Fanny shrank from her approach and that she had been weeping.  In a very ironical tone Julia said, “What now is the matter?  I declare, Fan, I believe you are a perfect little simpleton.  I wouldn’t be such a cry baby, anyway; and make so much fuss about one good-for-nothing doctor.”

Fanny replied very calmly, and without once taking her eyes from her sister’s face, “If you think I have been crying about Dr. Lacey, you are mistaken.”

“Pray what did you cry for?” said Julia, laughingly.  “Did somebody look sideways at you, or omit to call you by some pet baby name?”

“I cried,” said Fanny, “because I feared you had been acting very wickedly toward me.”

In an instant Julia’s assurance left her.  The bright color forsook her cheek, which became perfectly white.  Fanny noticed the change, and it confirmed her fears.  She did not know that the circumstances to which she alluded had long since faded from Julia’s memory, and that her present agitation arose from the fear that she might have been detected in her work of deception, and that, after all, she might be foiled and entangled in her own meshes.  A glance of intense anger flashed from her large black eye, as she muttered between her closed teeth:  “Has the wretch dared to betray me?”

Fanny supposed she referred to Luce; and her first feeling was to save the helpless servant girl from Julia’s displeasure; so she said, “Do not condemn Luce; she did not tell me.  I received my information from our teacher, Mr. Miller.”

“Luce!  Mr. Miller!  What do you mean?” asked Julia, her eyes lessening to their usual size, and the color again coming to her cheeks and lips.  This sudden change in her sister’s appearance puzzled Fanny; but she proceeded to relate what she had just heard from Mr. Miller.  Julia was so much relieved to find her fears unfounded, and her darling secret safe, that she burst into a loud laugh, which she continued for some time.  During this fit