Maud dropped her trinkets, and seizing two corners of the sash, she opened it, in a way to exhibit its freshness and beauty.

“Is this old, or worn?” she asked, reproachfully.  “Your father never even saw it, Bob.  It has not yet been around the waist of man.”

“It is not possible!—­This would be the work of months—­is so beautiful—­you cannot have purchased it.”

Maud appeared distressed at his doubts.  Opening the folds still wider, she raised the centre of the silk to the light, pointed to certain letters that had been wrought into the fabric, so ingeniously as to escape ordinary observation, and yet so plainly as to be distinctly legible when the attention was once drawn to them.  The major took the sash into his own hands altogether, held it opened before the candles, and read the words “Maud Meredith” aloud.  Dropping the sash, he turned to seek the face of the donor, but she had fled the room.  He followed her footsteps and entered the library, just as she was about to escape from it, by a different door.

“I am offended at your incredulity,” said Maud, making an effort to laugh away the scene, “and will not remain to hear lame excuses.  Your new regiment can have no nature in it, or brothers would not treat sisters thus.”

“Maud Meredith is not my sister,” he said, earnestly, “though Maud Willoughby may be.  Why is the name Meredith?”

“As a retort to one of your own allusions—­did you not call me Miss Meredith, one day, when I last saw you in Albany?”

“Ay, but that was in jest, my dearest Maud.  It was not a deliberate thing, like the name on that sash.”

“Oh! jokes may be premeditated as well as murder; and many a one is murdered, you know.  Mine is a prolonged jest.”

“Tell me, does my mother—­does Beulah know who made this sash?”

“How else could it have been made, Bob?  Do you think I went into the woods, and worked by myself, like some romantic damsel who had an unmeaning secret to keep against the curious eyes of persecuting friends!”

“I know not what I thought—­scarce know what I think now.  But, my mother; does she know of this name?”

Maud blushed to the eyes; but the habit and the love of truth were so strong in her, that she shook her head in the negative.

“Nor Beulah?—­She, I am certain, would not have permitted ‘Meredith’ to appear where ‘Willoughby’ should have been.”

“Nor Beulah, either, major Willoughby,” pronouncing the name with an affectation of reverence.  “The honour of the Willoughbys is thus preserved from every taint, and all the blame must fall on poor Maud Meredith.”

“You dislike the name of Willoughby, then, and intend to drop it, in future—­I have remarked that you sign yourself only ‘Maud,’ in your last letters—­never before, however, did I suspect the reason.”

“Who wishes to live for ever an impostor?  It is not my legal name, and I shall soon be called on to perform legal acts.  Remember, Mr. Robert Willoughby, I am twenty; when it comes to pounds, shillings, and pence, I must not forge.  A little habit is necessary to teach me the use of my own bona fide signature.”