“I overheard,” said Beth.  “Tell me, Tom, is she really like Lucy?”

He looked at her with a dazed expression, as if he scarcely comprehended her words.

“Could you have been mistaken?” persisted the questioner.

He passed his hand over his eyes and gave a shudder.

“Either it was Lucy or her ghost,” he muttered.

“Eliza Parsons is no ghost,” declared Beth.  “She’s one of the maids here at Elmhurst, and you’re quite likely to see her again.”

“Has she been here long?” he asked, eagerly.

“No; only a few days.”

“Oh!”

“When I first saw her I was struck by her resemblance to Mrs. Rogers,” continued the girl.

“But she’s so different,” said Tom, choking back a sob.  “Lucy couldn’t be so—­so airy, so heartless.  She isn’t at all that style of a girl, miss.”

“She may be acting,” suggested Beth.

But he shook his head gloomily.

“No; Lucy couldn’t act that way.  She’s quick and impulsive, but she—­she couldn’t act.  And she wouldn’t treat me that way, either, Miss Beth.  Lucy and I have been sweethearts for years, and I know every expression of her dear face.  But the look that this girl gave me was one that my Lucy never could assume.  I must have been mistaken.  I—­I’m sure I was mistaken.”

Beth sighed.  She was disappointed.

“I suppose,” continued Tom, “that I’ve thought of Lucy so long and so much, lately, and worried so over her disappearance, that I’m not quite myself, and imagined this girl was more like her than she really is.  What did you say her name was?”

“Eliza Parsons.”

“Thank you.  Can you tell me where I’ll find Mr. Forbes?”

“He’s getting ready for dinner, now, and won’t need you at present.”

“Then I’ll go back to my room.  It—­it was a great shock to me, that likeness, Miss DeGraf.”

“I can well believe it,” said Beth; and then she went to her own apartment, greatly puzzled at a resemblance so strong that it had even deceived Lucy Rogers’s own sweetheart.

CHAPTER XV

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

“If she is really Lucy Rogers, she’ll be missing tomorrow morning,” said Beth when she had told her cousins of the encounter in the corridor.

But Eliza Parsons was still at Elmhurst the next day, calmly pursuing her duties, and evidently having forgotten or decided to ignore the young man who had so curiously mistaken her for another.  Beth took occasion to watch her movements, so far as she could, and came to the conclusion that the girl was not acting a part.  She laughed naturally and was too light-hearted and gay to harbor a care of any sort in her frivolous mind.

But there was a mystery about her; that could not be denied.  Even if she were but a paid spy of Erastus Hopkins there was a story in this girl’s life, brief as it had been.