Very considerate was Rose of Maggie’s feelings and not again that afternoon did she speak of Hester, though she talked much of their father; and Margaret, listening to his praises, felt herself insensibly drawn towards this new claimant for her filial love.  “I wish I could have seen him,” she said; and, starting to her feet, Rose answered:  “Strange I did not think of it before.  We have his portrait.  Come this way,” and she led the half-unwilling Maggie into an adjoining room, where from the wall a portly, good-humored-looking man gazed down upon the sisters, his eyes seeming to rest with mournful tenderness on the face of her whom in life they had not looked upon.  He seemed older than Maggie had supposed, and the hair upon his head was white, reminding her of Hagar.  But she did not for this turn away from him.  There was something pleasing in the mild expression of his face, and she whispered faintly, “’Tis my father.”

On the right of this portrait was another, the picture of a woman, in whose curling lip and soft brown eyes Maggie recognized the mother of Henry.  To the left was another still, and she gazed upon the angel face, with eyes of violet blue, and hair of golden brown, on which the fading sunlight now was falling, encircling it as it were with a halo of glory.

“You are much like her,” she said to Rose, who made no answer, for she was thinking of another picture, which years before had been banished to the garret by her haughty grandmother, as unworthy a place beside him who had petted and caressed the young girl of plebeian birth and kindred.

“I can make amends for it, though,” thought Rose, returning with Maggie to the parlor.  Then, seeking out her husband, she held with him a whispered consultation, the result of which was that on the morrow there was a rummaging in the garret, an absence from home for an hour or two, and when about noon she returned there was a pleased expression on her face, as if she had accomplished her purpose, whatever it might have been.

All that morning Maggie had been restless and uneasy, wandering listlessly from room to room, looking anxiously down the street, starting nervously at the sound of every footstep, while her cheeks alternately flushed and then grew pale as the day passed on.  Dinner being over she sat alone in the parlor, her eyes fixed upon the carpet, and her thoughts away with one who she vaguely hoped would have followed her ere this.  True, she had added no postscript to tell him of her new discovery; but Hagar knew, and he would go to her for a confirmation of the letter.  She would tell him where Maggie was gone, and he, if his love could survive that shock, would follow her thither; nay, would be there that very day, and Maggie’s heart grew wearier, fainter, as time wore on and he did not come.  “I might have known it,” she whispered sadly.  “I knew that he would nevermore think of me,” and she wept silently over her ruined love.