“Blast it!  I am tired of business,” responded her dutiful nephew impatiently, adding:  “I suppose the sooner I go, though, the quicker it will be over.”

“Yes, I want everything fixed secure before my marriage, for I intend to manage my own private affairs afterward, the same as before,” his companion returned.

Louis laughed with some amusement.

“You ought to have been a man, Aunt Marg; your spirit is altogether too self-reliant and independent for a woman,” he said.

“I know it; but being a woman, I must try to make the best of the situation in the future, as I have done all my life,” she returned, with a self-conscious smile.

“Well, I will look after that matter right away—­get your instructions ready and I will be off within an hour or two,” said the young man, as he rose and went out, while Mrs. Montague proceeded directly to her own room.

CHAPTER III.

MONA FORESTER.

While Louis Hamblin and Mrs. Montague were engaged in the discussion mentioned in the preceding chapter, below stairs Mona sat in the sewing-room reading the paper of the previous evening.  She was waiting for Mrs. Montague to come up to give her some directions about a dress which she was repairing before she could go on with it.

She had read the general news and was leisurely scanning the advertisement columns, as people often do without any special object in view, when her eye fell upon these lines: 

WANTED—­INFORMATION REGARDING A PERSON named Mona Forester, or her heirs, if any there be.  Knowledge to her or their advantage is in the possession of CORBIN & RUSSEL, No.—­Broadway, N. Y.

Mona lost all her color as she read this.

“Can it be possible that there is any connection between this Mona Forester and my history?” she murmured thoughtfully; “Mona is a very uncommon name—­it cannot be that my mother’s surname was Forester, since she was Uncle Walter’s sister.  Perhaps this Mona Forester may have been some relative for whom she was named—­possibly an aunt, or even her mother, and thus I may be one of the heirs.  But,” she interrupted herself and smiled, “what a romantic creature I am, to be weaving such a story out of a mere advertisement!  Still,” she added, more thoughtfully, “this woman’s heirs cannot be very numerous or it would not be necessary to advertise for them.”

She carefully cut out the lines from the paper, slipped the clipping into her pocket-book, then took up her work just as Mrs. Montague entered the room.

She gave instructions regarding the alterations she wished made, and then left Mona by herself again.  All day long Mona’s mind kept recurring to the advertisement she had cut from the paper, while she had an instinctive feeling that she might be in some way connected with Mona Forester, although how she could not comprehend.