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“Not a serious matter,” replied Fanny’s aunt, “to discover that the betrothed of your daughter is a dishonest man?”

“Nonsense! nonsense! you don’t know what you are talking about,” said Mr. Lovering, fretfully. “He’s shrewd and sharp, as every business-man who expects to succeed must be. As to his trade operations, Fanny has nothing to do with them. He’ll make her a kind husband, and provide for her handsomely. What more can she ask?”

“A great deal more,” replied Mrs. Waring, firmly.

“What more, pray?”

“A husband, in whose high moral virtues, and unselfish regard for the right, she can unerringly confide. One who will never, in his eager desire to secure for himself some personal end or gratification, forget what is due to the tender, confiding wife who has placed all that is dear to her in his guardianship. Brother, depend upon it, the man who deliberately wrongs another to gain an advantage to himself, will never, in marriage, make a truly virtuous woman happy. This I speak thoughtfully and solemnly; and I pray you take it to heart, ere conviction of what I assert comes upon you too late. But, I may have said too much. Forgive my plain speaking. From the fulness of the heart is this utterance.”

And so saying, Mrs. Waring passed from the room, and left the parents of Fanny alone with their weeping child. Few words were spoken by either Mr. or Mrs. Lovering. Something in the last remarks of Mrs. Waring had startled their minds into new convictions. As for the daughter, she soon retired to her own apartment, and did not join the family again until the next morning. Then, her sad eyes and colorless face too plainly evidenced a night of sleeplessness and suffering.

By a kind of tacit consent on the part of each member of the family, no allusion, whatever, was made to the occurrences of the day previous. Evening came, but not as usual came Edward Allen. The next day, and the next went by, without his accustomed appearance. For a whole week his visits were omitted.

Grievous was the change which, in that time, had become visible in Fanny Lovering. The very light of her life seemed to go out suddenly; and, for a while, she had groped about in thick darkness. A few feeble rays were again becoming visible; but from a quarter of the heavens where she had not expected light. Wisely, gently, and unobtrusively had Mrs. Waring, during this period of gloom and distress, cast high truths into the mind of her suffering niece–and from these, as stars in the firmament of thought, came the rays by which she was able to see a path opening before her. When, at the end of the tenth day of uncertainty, came a note from Allen, in these brief words: “If it is Miss Lovering’s wish to be free from her engagement, a word will annul the contract”–she replied, within ten minutes, “Let the contract be annulled; you are free.”

Two weeks later, and Mr. Lovering brought home the intelligence that Allen was to be married in a few days to a certain Miss Jerrold, daughter of a man reputed wealthy.

“To Miss Jerrold! It cannot be!” said Mrs. Lovering in surprise.

“I will not believe it, father.” Fanny spoke with quivering lips and a choking voice.

“Who is Miss Jerrold?” asked Mrs. Waring.

“A coarse, vulgar-minded girl, of whom many light things have been said,” replied Mrs. Lovering, indignantly. “But her father is rich, and she is an only child.”

“He never loved you, dear,” said Mrs. Waring to Fanny about a week later, as the yet suffering girl laid her tearful face on her bosom. The news had just come that Miss Jerrold was the bride of Allen. The frame of the girl thrilled for a moment or two; then all was calm, and she replied–

“Not as I wished to be loved. O aunt! what an escape I have made! I look down the fearful gulf on the very brink of which my feet were arrested, and shudder to the heart’s core. If he could take her, he never could have appreciated me. Something more than maiden purity and virtue attracted him. Ah! how could my instincts have been so at fault!”