in the home which Uncle Israel so disinterestedly helped them to procure, she and her mother were sewing for the food which they ate.  Then a dozen times was an answer commenced, blotted with tears, and finally destroyed, until Ada, burying her face in her mother’s lap, sobbed out, “Oh, mother, I cannot do it.  I cannot write to tell them how poor we are, for I remember that Jenny was proud, and laughed at the schoolgirls whose fathers were not rich.”

So the letter was never answered, and as St. Leon about that time started on a tour through Europe, he knew nothing of their change of circumstances.  On his way home he had in Paris met with Harry Graham, who had been his classmate, and who now won from him a promise that on his return to America he would visit his parents, in S——.  He did so, and there, as we have seen, met with Ada Harcourt, whose face, voice, and manner reminded him so strangely of the Ada he had known years before, and whom he had never forgotten.

As the reader will have supposed, the sewing-woman whose daughter Lucy Dayton so heartily despised was none other than Mrs. Linwood, of New Haven, who had taken her husband’s first name in order to avoid the persecutions of Uncle Israel.  The day following the party St. Leon spent in making inquiries concerning Mrs. Harcourt, and the information thus obtained determined him to start at once for New Haven, in order to ascertain if his suspicions are correct.

The result of his journey we already know.  Still he resolved not to make himself known immediately, but to wait until he satisfied himself that Ada was as good as beautiful.  And then?

A few more chapters will tell us what then.

CHAPTER VII.

A MANEUVER.

The gray twilight of a cold December afternoon was creeping over the village of S——­, when Ada Harcourt left her seat by the window, where, the livelong day, she had sat stitching till her heart was sick and her eyes were dim.  On the faded calico lounge near the fire lay Mrs. Harcourt, who for several days had been unable to work on account of a severe cold which seemed to have settled in her face and eyes.

“There,” said Ada, as she brushed from her gingham apron the bits of thread and shreds of cotton, “there, it is done at last, and now before it is quite dark I will take it home.”

“No, not to-night,” said Mrs. Harcourt; “to-morrow will do just as well.”

“But, mother,” answered Ada, “you know Mrs. Dayton always pays as soon as the work is delivered, and what I have finished will come to two dollars and a half, which will last a long time, and we shall not be obliged to take any from the sum laid by to pay our rent; besides, you have had nothing nourishing for a long time; so let me go, and on my way home I will buy you something nice for supper.”

Mrs. Harcourt said no more, but the tears fell from her aching eyes as she thought how hard her daughter was obliged to labor, now that she was unable to assist her.  In a moment Ada was in the street.  The little alley in which she lived was soon traversed, and she about turning into Main Street, when rapid footsteps approached her, and St. Leon appeared at her side, saying, “Good evening, Miss Harcourt; allow me to relieve you of that bundle.”