"If you weren't such an infatuated fool," continued my plain-spoken
friend, I would say to you, let her take her own way, and the day
after to-morrow we will leave New York."
"One week more," said I, with an uneasy feeling about the heart.
At seven the next evening I entered what had been my Elysium, but was
now, little by little, becoming my Tartarus. Again I found Margaret
alone over a romance. "And Arthurine?" enquired I, in a voice that
might perhaps have been steadier.
"She is gone with mamma and Mr Moreland to hear Miss Fanny Wright."
"To hear Miss Fanny Wright! the atheist, the revolutionist! What a
mad fancy! Who would ever have dreamed of such a thing!"
This Miss Fanny Wright was a famous lecturess, of the Owenite school,
who was shunned like a pestilence by the fashionable world of New
York.
"Mr Moreland," answered Margaret, "said so much about her eloquence
that Arthurine's curiosity was roused."
"Indeed!" replied I.
"Oh! you do not know what a noble girl she is. For her sister she
would sacrifice her life. My only hope is in her."