“And who, pray, is Hagar?” asked Mr. Carrollton; and Maggie replied, “She is my old nurse—­a strange, crazy creature, whom they say I somewhat resemble.”

By this time they were near the cottage, in the door of which old Hagar was standing, with her white hair falling round her face.

“I see by your looks you don’t care to call, but I shall,” said Maggie; and, bounding from her saddle, she ran up to Hagar, pressing her hand and whispering that it would soon be time to hear from Henry.

“Kissed her, I do believe!” said Anna Jeffrey.  “She must have admirable taste!”

Mr. Carrollton said nothing, but with a half-comical, half-displeased expression he watched the interview between that weird old woman and the fair young girl, little suspecting how nearly they were allied.

“Why didn’t you come and speak to her?” said Maggie, as he alighted to assist her in again mounting Gritty.  “She used to see you in England, when you were a baby, and if you won’t be angry I’ll tell you what she said.  It was that you were the crossest, ugliest young one she ever saw!  There, there; don’t set me down so hard!” and the saucy eyes looked mischievously at the proud Englishman, who, truth to say, did place her in the saddle with a little more force than was at all necessary.

Not that he was angry.  He was only annoyed at what he considered Maggie’s undue familiarity with a person like Hagar, but he wisely forbore making any comments in Anna Jeffrey’s presence, except, indeed, to laugh heartily at Hagar’s complimentary description of himself when a baby.  Arrived at home, and alone again with Maggie, he found her so very good-natured and agreeable that he could not chide her for anything, and Hagar was for a time forgotten.

That evening, as the reader knows, they went together to the depot, where they waited four long hours, but not impatiently; for sitting there in the moonlight, with the winding Chicopee full in view, and Margaret Miller at his side, Arthur Carrollton forgot the lapse of time, especially when Maggie, thinking it no harm, gave a most ludicrous description of her call upon Mrs. Douglas, senior, and of her grandmother’s distress at finding herself so nearly connected with what she termed “a low, vulgar family.”

Arthur Carrollton was very proud, and had Theo been his sister he might to some extent have shared in Madam Conway’s chagrin; and so he said to Maggie, at the same time fully agreeing with her that George Douglas was a refined, agreeable man, and as such entitled to respect.  Still, had Theo known of his parentage, he said, it would probably have made some difference; but now that it could not be helped it was wise to make the best of it.

These words were little heeded then by Maggie, but with most painful distinctness they recurred to her in the after time, when, humbled in the very dust, she had no hope that the highborn, haughty Carrollton would stoop to a child of Hagar Warren!  But no shadow of the dark future was over her now, and very eagerly she drank in every word and look of Arthur Carrollton, who, all unconsciously, was trampling on another’s rights and gradually weakening the fancied love she bore for Henry Warner.