me nothing now, I beseech you!' said Frances. 'I'm going to my room; tell Major Elliott I am not well; say I'm agitated—anything you like; but remember, he still thinks me Fanny Gaskoin'–
'But, my dear girl, I cannot permit that deception to be carried any further; it has lasted too long already,' said Mr Gaskoin.
'Only to-night!' said Frances.
'It is not fair to Major Elliott,' urged Mrs Gaskoin.
'Only to-night! only to-night!' reiterated Frances. 'There! he's coming; I hear his step in the hall! Let me out this way!' and so saying, she darted out of a door that led to the backstairs, and disappeared.
'She has refused him!' said Mrs Gaskoin. 'I confess I am amazed.'
But Major Elliott met them with a smiling face. 'What has become of Frances?' said he.
'She rushed in to us in a state of violent agitation, and begged we would tell you that she is not well, and is gone to her room. I'm afraid the result of your interview has not been what we expected.'
'On the contrary,' returned Major Elliott, 'you must both congratulate me on my good-fortune.'
'Silly girl!' said Mr Gaskoin, shaking his friend heartily by the hand. 'I see what it is: she is nervous about a little deception we have been practising on you.'
'A deception!'
'Why, you see, my dear fellow, when I told Frances that you were coming here, she objected to meeting you'–
'Indeed! On what account?'
'You have never suspected anything?' said Mr Gaskoin, scarcely repressing his laughter.
'Suspected anything? No.'
'It has never by chance occurred to you that this bewitching niece of mine is'–
'Is what?'
'Your betrothed lady, for example, Frances Seymour?'
Major Elliott's cheeks and lips turned several shades paler; but the candles were not lighted, and his friends did not remark the change.
'Frances Seymour!' he echoed.
'That is the precise state of the case, I assure you;' and then Mr Gaskoin proceeded to explain how the deception came to be practised. 'I gave into it,' he said, 'though I do not like jests of that sort, because I thought, as my wife did, that you were much more likely to take a fancy to each other, if you did not know who she was, than if you met under all the embarrassment of such an awkward relation.'
During this little discourse, Major Elliott had time to recover from the shock; and being a man of resolute calmness and great self-possession—which qualities, by the way, formed a considerable element in his attractions—the remainder of the evening was passed without any circumstance calculated to awaken the suspicions of his host and hostess, further than that a certain gravity of tone and manner, when they spoke of Frances, led them to apprehend that he was not altogether pleased with the jest that had been practised.
'We ought to have told him the moment we saw that he was pleased with her; but, foolish child, she would not let us,' said Mr Gaskoin to his wife.
'She must make her peace with him to-morrow,' returned the lady; but, alas! when they came down to breakfast on the following morning, Major Elliott was gone, having left a few lines to excuse his sudden departure, which, he said, he had only anticipated by a few hours, as, in any case, he must have left them that afternoon.
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