“Yes, indeed, Miss Farnum; I should be delighted to have you.  I am alone most of the time, and it would be very pleasant to have some young company.”

“Thank you.  Then, if you do not object, I will waive all ceremony, and come to see you in a friendly way.  May I bring mamma, too, and introduce her to you?”

“I shall be very glad to meet Mrs. Farnum,” Virgie responded, and then instantly asked herself if she had spoken the exact truth, for she stood somewhat in awe of that aristocratic and imposing looking woman, whose curious, piercing glance, in spite of her assumption of friendliness, gave her an unpleasant sensation.

“Mamma, the ice is broken at last!” Sadie Farnum cried, rushing in upon her mother, with a glowing face, after the above interview, and she proceeded to give her a detailed account of her meeting with Virgie.

“She is as lovely as a dream, mamma,” she said, “and as sweet and gracious as any lady need to be.  If she were not Sir William Heath’s wife I should be ready to do homage at her shrine with all my heart.”

“Nonsense!  Has she any education?  Can she converse respectably?” demanded Mrs. Farnum, with a frown at her daughter’s enthusiasm.

“She is a perfect lady, and her language is beyond criticism—­she is fit to be the wife of any peer.”

“Gracious!  Sadie, how you annoy me!” ejaculated Mrs. Farnum, angrily.  “Just think of her antecedents.”

“Well, the girl is not to blame if her father was a scamp, and should not be made to suffer for his sins,” responded her daughter, who was not naturally bad, and but for her mother’s influence, would even now have been won to a better disposition by Virgie’s sweetness.

“What rank folly you are talking!” retorted her mother.  “No girl has a right to marry a respectable man with such a stain on her name.”

“Perhaps she does not know anything about her father’s crime.”

“Pshaw!  She was fifteen years old when they had to flee from San Francisco; she could not help knowing that something was wrong, and as she grew older she could not fail to understand it.  From the way you talk it is evident that you yourself have fallen in love with the woman who has cheated you out of your husband.”

“Perhaps I have, mamma,” Sadie answered, with a spice of defiance and wickedly taking pleasure in working her mother up to a certain pitch.  “She looked so pretty just now—­she has the loveliest complexion, just clear red and white, with such dark blue eyes that they seem almost black when she is animated, and such pretty waving brown hair, while her features are pure and delicate Her taste, too, is exquisite—­her dress was just the right shade to set off her clear skin; she had the daintiest little matron’s cap on her head—­real thread, too—­while a handful of blush-roses in her belt made her look too lovely for anything.”

“Do hush, Sadie; you irritate me beyond endurance; one would think that you were only too ready to renounce all your hopes to this plebeian who has stolen your lover,” and Mrs. Farnum turned upon her daughter as if ready to shake her for her folly.