emu's egg. Do you know," he added, after a pause, "I think I have
made a great step in that direction."

She clasped her hands with delighted sympathy. "She has given me
leave to mention the matter," he continued, "and I take that as a
sign that her resistance will give way."

"Oh, I am very glad," said Fanny, "I have so wished them to know at
the Homestead," and her deepened colour revealed, against her will,
that she had not been insensible to the awkwardness of the secrecy.

"I should rather like to tell your cousin Rachel myself," said the
Colonel; "she has always been very kind to Ermine, and appreciated
her more than I should have expected. But she is not easily to be
seen now."

"Her whole heart is in her orphan asylum," said Fanny. "I hope you
will soon go with us and see it; the little girls look so nice."

The brightening of his prospects seemed to have quite consoled her
for her own perplexities.

That Avonmouth should have no suspicion of the cause of the sudden
change of pastor could hardly be hoped; but at least Lady Temple did
not know how much talk was expended upon her, how quietly Lord Keith
hugged himself, how many comical stories Bessie detailed in her
letters to her Clare cousins, nor how Mrs. Curtis resented the
presumption; and while she shrank from a lecture, more especially as
she did not see how dear Fanny was to blame, flattered herself and
Grace that, for the future, Colonel Keith and Rachel would take