The keen eyes that looked down into hers were glistening with an infinite tenderness that none, perhaps, but she would have deemed them capable of.  “Clara,” he said gently and cheerily, “try and compose yourself.  You are trembling now with the fatigue and excitement of your journey.  I have seen Carry; she is well and beautiful.  Let that suffice you now.”

His gentle firmness composed and calmed her now, as it had often done before.  Stroking her thin hand, he said, after a pause, “Did Carry ever write to you?”

“Twice, thanking me for some presents.  They were only schoolgirl letters,” she added, nervously answering the interrogation of his eyes.

“Did she ever know of your own troubles? of your poverty, of the sacrifices you made to pay her bills, of your pawning your clothes and jewels, of your—­”

“No, no!” interrupted the woman quickly:  “no!  How could she?  I have no enemy cruel enough to tell her that.”

“But if she—­or if Mrs. Tretherick—­had heard of it?  If Carry thought you were poor, and unable to support her properly, it might influence her decision.  Young girls are fond of the position that wealth can give.  She may have rich friends, maybe a lover.”

Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence.  “But,” she said eagerly, grasping Jack’s hand, “when you found me sick and helpless at Sacramento, when you—­God bless you for it, Jack!—­offered to help me to the East, you said you knew of something, you had some plan, that would make me and Carry independent.”

“Yes,” said Jack hastily; “but I want you to get strong and well first.  And, now that you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to the school.”

It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded to describe the interview already recorded, with a singular felicity and discretion that shames my own account of that proceeding.  Without suppressing a single fact, without omitting a word or detail, he yet managed to throw a poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest the heroine with a romantic roseate atmosphere, which, though not perhaps entirely imaginary, still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten years ago had made the columns of the Fiddletown Avalanche at once fascinating and instructive.  It was not until he saw the heightening color, and heard the quick breathing, of his eager listener, that he felt a pang of self-reproach.  “God help her and forgive me!” he muttered between his clinched teeth; “but how can I tell her all now!”

That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary head upon her pillow, she tried to picture to herself Carry at the same moment sleeping peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill; and it was a rare comfort to this yearning, foolish woman to know that she was so near.  But at this moment Carry was sitting on the edge of her bed, half-undressed, pouting her pretty lips and twisting her long, leonine locks between