“That’s my business, not yours,” answered Lenora, as she left the kitchen and repaired to her mother’s room.

“Lenora, what ails you?” said Mrs. Hamilton to her daughter at the tea-table that night, when, after putting salt in one cup of tea, and upsetting a second, she commenced spreading her biscuit with cheese instead of butter.  “What ails you?  What are you thinking about?  You don’t seem to know any more what you are doing than the dead.”

Lenora made no direct reply to this, but soon after she said, “Mother, how long has father been dead—­my own father I mean?”

“Two or three years, I don’t exactly know which,” returned her mother, and Lenora continued: 

“How did he look?  I hardly remember him.”

“You have asked me that fifty times,” answered her mother, “and fifty times I have told you that he looked like you, only worse, if possible.”

“Let me see, where did you say he died?” said Lenora.

“In New Orleans, with yellow fever, or black measles, or smallpox, or something,” Mrs. Hamilton replied, “but mercy’s sake! can’t you choose a better subject to talk about?  What made you think of him?  He’s been haunting me all day, and I feel kind of nervous and want to look over my shoulder whenever I am alone.”

Lenora made no further remark until after tea, when she announced her intention of going to the village.

“Come back early, for I don’t feel like staying alone,” said her mother.

The sun had set when Lenora left the village, and by the time she reached home it was wholly dark.  As she entered the garden the outline of a figure; sitting on a bench at its further extremity, made her stop for a moment, but thinking to herself, “I expected it, and why should I be afraid?” she walked on fearlessly, until the person, roused by the sound of her footsteps, started up, and turning toward her, said half-aloud: 

“Lenora, is it you?”

Quickly she sprang forward, and soon one hand of the beggar was clasped in hers, while the other rested upon her head, as he said, “Lenora, my child, my daughter, you do not hate me?”

“Hate you, father?” she answered, “never, never.”

“But,” he continued, “has not she—­my—­no, not my wife—­thank Heaven not my wife now—­but your mother, has not she taught you to despise and hate me?”

“No,” answered Lenora bitterly.  “She has taught me enough of evil, but my memories of you were too sweet, too pleasant, for me to despise you, though I do not think you always did right, more than mother.”

The stranger groaned, and murmured:  “It’s true, all true;” while Lenora continued: 

“But where have you been all these years, and how came we to hear of your death?”

“I have been in St. Louis most of the time, and the report of my death resulted from the fact that a man bearing my name, and who was also from Connecticut, died of yellow fever in New Orleans about two years and a half ago.  A friend of mine, observing a notice of his death, and supposing it to refer to me, forwarded the paper to your mother, who, though then free from me, undoubtedly felt glad, for she never loved me, but married me because she thought I had money.”