The letter was reluctantly produced; and as I handed it to the old lady, I saw how the unwilling hand from which I took it, trembled.

‘Now let us see,’ said Mrs. Markleham, putting her glass to her eye, ‘where the passage is. “The remembrance of old times, my dearest Annie” — and so forth — it’s not there.

“The amiable old Proctor” — who’s he? Dear me, Annie, how illegibly your cousin Maldon writes, and how stupid I am! “Doctor,” of course. Ah! amiable indeed!’ Here she left off, to kiss her fan again, and shake it at the Doctor, who was looking at us in a state of placid satisfaction. ‘Now I have found it. “You may not be surprised to hear, Annie,” — no, to be sure, knowing