But fortune favored him later on.

One morning Mrs. Montague came into the sewing-room all animation, and beaming with smiles.

“Ruth, I am going to ask a great favor of you,” she said:  “I wonder if you will oblige me.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Montague, I shall be very glad to do so, if it is within my power,” Mona readily responded.

“Well, then,” continued the lady, “I am invited to spend a week at the residence of a friend who lives near Rhinebeck, a little way up the Hudson.  Quite a party are going also, and great preparations have been made for us.  In fact, it is to be a sort of carnival, on a small scale, and is to wind up with a grand ball.  Now, I want you to go with me, Ruth, to help arrange my different costumes, and to act as a kind of dressing-maid—­you have such good taste and judgment.  Will you go?  You will, of course, be relieved from your regular work, while, perhaps, you will find the rest and change agreeable.”

Mona thought a few moments before replying.

Her only objection to going with Mrs. Montague was she feared she might meet people whom she had known and associated with before her uncle died.  She dreaded to be ignored or treated rudely by old acquaintances.  She could not forget her recent experience at Macy’s.

But she reasoned that she might not see any one whom she knew; she had never met Mrs. Montague in society, and her circle of friends might be entirely different from those with whom she had mingled.  She longed for a respite from ceaseless stitching, and for some change of scene, and she finally resolved to go.

“Why, yes, I am perfectly willing to attend you if you wish,” she said at last.

“Thank you—­you have relieved my mind of quite a burden, for I feared you might decline my request,” Mrs. Montague returned, and then went away to do her packing.

They were to leave New York that afternoon, but Mona had not once thought that Louis Hamblin would be likely to be one of the party, until he joined Mrs. Montague at the station.

There were a dozen or fifteen people in the party, and the young man was devotedly attentive to a pretty dark-eyed girl, who was addressed as Kitty McKenzie.

His eyes lighted with a flash of pleasure, however, the moment he caught sight of Mona, although he betrayed no other sign that he had ever seen her before.

The fair girl flushed with indignation at this slight.

Not because she was at all anxious to have him take notice of her, but because he failed to treat her, in the presence of his friends and social equals, with the courtesy which he had always been so eager to show her elsewhere.

It was a very gay party, and, as a drawing-room car had been chartered for their especial use, there was nothing to impose any restraint upon them, and mirth and pleasure reigned.

Two-thirds of the company were young people, and Kitty McKenzie was one of the merriest of the group, and apparently a great favorite, while it could be readily seen that the attentions of Louis Hamblin were very acceptable to her—­her every look and smile, when conversing with him, indicating that he was far more to her than an ordinary acquaintance.