As to the letter and package, we will keep that for further consideration.

It cannot be of much importance, or they would have spoken of it before; it is probably some trifling present as a return for your hospitality.

I should use no INDECOROUS haste in having it opened." The two women kissed Mrs.Scott with a feeling of relief, and fell back into the monotony of their household duties.

It is to be feared, however, that the absence of their outlawed guests was nearly as dangerous as their presence in the opportunity it afforded for uninterrupted and imaginative reflection.

Both Kate and Josephine were at first shocked and wounded by the discovery of the real character of the two men with whom they had associated so familiarly, but it was no disparagement to their sense of propriety to say that the shock did not last long, and was accompanied with the fascination of danger.