The day was two hours older.

Launce Keymer had not required much pressing to induce him to accept the invitation of the ladies of Vale View to join them over their early supper. The sisters had been used to early hours in their youth, and as they did not account themselves as being in any respect fashionable folk, they had seen no reason to alter their ways now they were growing old. In the dining-room the lamps were lighted and the curtains drawn. The circular table was laid out with immaculate napery and gleaming silver, with a china centre bowl heaped with some of the flowers Ethel had gathered earlier in the day, supplemented by other blooms from the conservatory. Charlotte, deftest of waiting-maids, in her neat black dress and snowy cuffs and apron, had an eye to the wants of each and all.

Keymer was in the brightest of spirits, and did not allow the talk to flag for a moment. The sisters had not laughed so much for a long time as they did over his description of a voyage in bad weather from Boulogne to Folkestone. He was a capital mimic, and the way in which he hit off the idiosyncrasies of sundry of those on board was genuinely diverting, without any trace of the vulgarity to which such a subject so readily lends itself; for Launce Keymer was clever enough to know where to draw the line in accordance with the class of company in which he happened to find himself. As for Charlotte, she was several times compelled to turn her back on the table, and even then was unable wholly to suppress the giggle with which she could not help greeting some of Mr. Keymer\'s sallies.

If Ethel did not laugh much, a smile was rarely long absent from her lips, while there was a sparkle in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks such as, to those who knew her well, might almost have seemed due to a touch of fever. But, if such were the case, they had their origin in a fever of the mind rather than of the body. Was she happy? She could not have told. Had the question put itself to her, she would have thrust it aside, and have resolutely refused to answer it. Self-analysis was about the last thing she would have cared to enter upon just then; indeed, she was far too healthy-minded to indulge much at any time in introspective moods and fancies. So many surprising things had happened to her in the course of the day, that she might well be excused for feeling as if she had not yet recovered her mental equilibrium. She ate scarcely anything, and to her that scene at the supper-table was almost as unreal as some phantasmagoria, conjured up by an overwrought brain. What she needed was a long night\'s sleep to calm her overheated pulses, and restore the delicate balance of her nervous system which a crowd of circumstances had for the moment sufficed to disturb.

Supper was just over, but the ladies had not yet risen from the table, when Fanny, the under-housemaid, entered the room with a letter which had arrived by the evening post. The letter was addressed to "The Misses Thursby," but, as a matter of course, she took it direct to Miss Matilda, as she would have taken it to Miss Jane had it not arrived till a fortnight later. Miss Matilda examined the address and postmark through her pince-nez, which she did not wear habitually, but only when reading or writing.

"It bears the London postmark," she remarked to her sister, across the table; "but the writing of the address is strange to me." Then turning to Launce, with a smile and a little bow, she said: "Have I your permission, Mr. Keymer?"

"Most certainly, my dear madam," he replied, with a grave inclination of the head. Then, while Miss Matilda was occupied with the opening and reading of her letter, he said to himself, glancing from one sister to the other: "What a couple of queer old frumps they are! They are awfully nice and good, though, far too good, not to say goody-goody, for the like of me. If I were compelled to be shut up here, I should be bored to death in a week. I suppose this place will be Ethel\'s, when they have gone over to the majority. Well, by that time, what\'s Ethel\'s will be mine, and it strikes me I could make myself pretty comfortable at Vale View, with a thousand, or twelve hundred a year. No, on second thoughts, I could never bear to settle down here. I should let the place and----but what\'s up with the old damsel? She looks as if she might be going to have a fit."

And, indeed, Miss Matilda\'s face, as she read the letter, had gradually faded to a dull, ashen hue.

"What is it, Mattie, dear?" demanded Miss Jane, with a gasp. It was a proof how much she was moved that she should have addressed her sister before company by the familiar name of her girlhood.

"Oh, aunty, what has happened?" broke in Ethel.

For answer Miss Matilda pushed the letter across the table to her sister. "Perhaps you had better read it for yourself," she said. Then turning to Charlotte, she added: "You can leave the room till I ring."

Miss Jane, with fingers that trembled slightly, brought her pince-nez into requisition and did as her sister had bidden her. "What does it mean?" she asked when she had read it through; but there was a frightened look in her eyes which seemed to indicate that, in part at least, she guessed.

"It means ruin, sister--nothing less than ruin," replied Miss Matilda in her most solemn tones, "should what is here stated prove on further investigation to be the fact."

At t............