If the worst comes to the worst, I know what to do! And I must write to him--not now--as soon as he's well--he must come away.

Even if it should turn out all a mistake, he must come away!--I'll write to him, as soon as he's well, that he must come away.

And I'll question Cornelia again--ah! she's a handsome girl!--it's well I got her up here, out of the way!--I'll find out more from her.

It may be a mistake, after all--it may, it may!" While Aunt Margaret, sitting in her boudoir, thus took doubtful and disconnected counsel with herself, Cornelia was left to manage her little difficulties as best she might.

Being tolerably quick in observing, and putting things together, and unwilling to trust to intuitive judgments of what was safe or unsafe in the moral atmosphere, she set to work with all her wits, and not without some measure of success, to fathom the secrets of the tantalizing freemasonry which piqued her curiosity.