“Maggie, sister,” came to her ear, and Rose was at her side.  “I have a surprise for you, darling.  Can you bear it now?”

Oh, how eagerly poor Maggie Miller looked up in Rose’s face!  The car whistle had sounded half an hour before.  Could it be that he had come?  Was he there?  Did he love her still?  No, Maggie, no; the surprise awaiting you is of a far different nature, and the tears flow afresh when Rose, in reply to the question “What is it, darling?” answers, “It is this,” at the same time placing in Maggie’s hand an ambrotype which she bade her examine.  With a feeling of keen disappointment Maggie opened the casing, involuntarily shutting her eyes as if to gather strength for what she was to see.

It was a young face—­a handsome face—­a face much like her own, while in the curve of the upper lip and the expression of the large black eyes there was a look like Hagar Warren.  They had met together thus, the one a living reality, the other a semblance of the dead, and she who held that picture trembled violently.  There was a fierce struggle within, the wildly beating heart throbbing for one moment with a newborn love, and then rebelling against taking that shadow, beautiful though it was, in place of her whose memory she had so long revered.

“Who is it, Maggie?” Rose asked, leaning over her shoulder.

Maggie knew full well whose face it was she looked upon, but not yet could she speak that name so interwoven with memories of another, and she answered mournfully, “It is Hester Hamilton.”

“Yes, Margaret, your mother,” said Rose.  “I never called her by that name, but I respect her for your sake.  She was my father’s pet, so it has been said, for he was comparatively old, and she his young girl-wife.”

“Where did you get this?” Maggie asked; and, coloring crimson, Rose replied, “We have always had her portrait, but grandmother, who was very old and foolishly proud about some things, was offended at our father’s last marriage, and when after his death the portraits were brought here, she—­Forgive her, Maggie—­she did not know you, or she would not have done it—­”

“I know,” interrupted Maggie.  “She despised this Hester Warren, and consigned her portrait to some spot from which you have brought it and had this taken from it.”

“Not despised her!” cried Rose, in great distress, as she saw a dark expression stealing over the face of Maggie, in whose heart a chord of sympathy had been struck when she thought of her mother banished from her father’s side.  “Grandma could not despise her,” continued Rose; “she was so good, so beautiful.”