allotted six weeks with her guardian. We might certainly expect
her on the twentieth of September, and she would take the
greatest care to fit herself for our society by arriving in the
lowest possible spirits, and bringing her own sackcloth and ashes
along with her.

The first ordeal to which this alarming letter forced me to
submit was the breaking of the news it contained to my two
brothers. The disclosure affected them very differently. Poor
dear Owen merely turned pale, lifted his weak, thin hands in a
panic-stricken manner, and then sat staring at me in speechless
and motionless bewilderment. Morgan stood up straight before me,
plunged both his hands into his pockets, burst suddenly into the
harshest laugh I ever heard from his lips, and told me, with an
air of triumph, that it was exactly what he expected.

"What you expected?" I repeated, in astonishment.

"Yes," returned Morgan, with his bitterest emphasis. "It doesn't
surprise me in the least. It's the way things go in this
world--it's the regular moral see-saw of good and evil--the old
story with the old end to it. They were too happy in the garden
of Eden--down comes the serpent and turns them out. Solomon was
too wise--down comes the Queen of Sheba, and makes a fool of him.
We've been too comfortable at The Glen Tower--down comes a woman,
and sets us all three by the ears together. All I wonder at is
that it hasn't happened before." With those words Morgan
resignedly took out his pipe, put on his old felt hat and turned
to the door.