Years, however, passed on, and a man whom she thought wealthy offered her his hand.  She accepted it, and found, too late, that she was wedded to poverty.  This aroused the evil of her nature to such an extent that her husband’s life became one of great unhappiness, and four years after Lenora’s birth he left her.  Several years later she succeeded in procuring a divorce, although she still retained his name.  Recently she had heard of his death, and about the same time, too, she heard that the wife of Ernest Hamilton was dying.  Suddenly a wild scheme entered her mind.  She would remove to the village of Glenwood, would ingratiate herself into the favor of Mrs. Hamilton, win her confidence and love, and then when she was dead the rest she fancied would be an easy matter, for she knew that Mr. Hamilton was weak and easily flattered.

For several weeks they had been in Glenwood, impatiently waiting an opportunity for making the acquaintance of the Hamiltons.  But as neither Margaret nor Carrie called, Lenora became discouraged, and one day exclaimed, “I should like to know what you are going to do.  There is no probability of that proud Mag’s calling on me.  How I hate her, with her big black eyes and hateful ways!”

“Patience, patience,” said Mrs. Carter, “I’ll manage it; as Mrs. Hamilton is sick, it will be perfectly proper for me to go and see her,” and then was planned the visit which we have described.

“Oh, won’t it be grand!” said Lenora that night, as she sat sipping her tea.  “Won’t it be grand, if you do succeed, and won’t I lord it over Miss Margaret!  As for that little white-faced Carrie, she’s too insipid for one to trouble herself about, and I dare say thinks you a very nice woman, for how can her Sabbath-school teacher be otherwise;” and a satirical laugh echoed through the room.  Suddenly springing up, Lenora glanced at herself in the mirror, and turning to her mother, said, “Did you hear when Walter is expected—­and am I so very ugly looking?”

While Mrs. Carter is preparing an answer to the first question, we, for the sake of our readers, will answer the last one.  Lenora was a little dark-looking girl about eighteen years of age.  Her eyes were black, her face was black, and her hair was black, standing out from her head in short, thick curls, which gave to her features a strange witch-like expression.  From her mother she had inherited the same sweet, cooing voice, the same gliding, noiseless footsteps, which had led some of their acquaintance to accuse them of what, in the days of New England witchcraft, would have secured their passport to another world.