“Well, after the fortunate ones were gone, I went to my room to pout, and directly Mother Richards sent Johnny up to coax me, whereupon there ensued a bit of a quarrel, I twitting him about that ambrotype of a young girl, which Nell Tiffton found at the St. Nicholas, and which the doctor claimed, seeming greatly agitated, and saying it was very dear to him, because the original was dead.  Well, I told him of it, and said if he loved that girl better than me, he was welcome to have her.  ’Lina Worthington had too may eligible offers to play second fiddle to any one.

“‘’Lina,’ he said, ’I will not deceive you, though I meant to do so.  I did love another before ever I heard of you, a fair young girl, as pure, as innocent as the angels.  She is an angel now, for she is dead.  Do not ask further of her.  Let it suffice that I loved her, that I lost her.  I shall never tell you more of her sad story.  Let her never be named to me again.  It was long ago.  I have met you since, have asked and wish you to be my wife,’—­and so we made it up, and I promised not to speak of my rival.  Pleasant predicament, I am in, but I’ll worm it out of him yet.  I’ll haunt him with her dead body.”

* * * * *

“Oh, mother,” and Hugh gasped for breath.  “Is Ad—­can she be anything to us?  Is my blood in her veins?”

“Yes, Hugh, she’s your half-sister.  Forgive me that I made her so,” and the poor mother wept over the heartless girl.  “But go on,” she whispered.  “See where ’Lina is now,” and Hugh read on, learning that old Mother Richards had returned home, that Anna had written a sweet, sisterly note, welcoming her as John’s bride to their love, that she had answered her in the same gracious strain, heightening the effect by dropping a few drops of water here and there, to answer for tears wrung out by Anna’s sympathy, that Mrs. Ellsworth and her brother, Irving Stanley, came to the hotel, that Irving had a ticket to the ball offered him, but declined, just because he did not believe in balls, that having a little ‘axe to grind,’ she had done her best to cultivate Mrs. Ellsworth, presuming a great deal on their courtship, and making herself so agreeable to her child, a most ugly piece of deformity, that cousin Carrie, who had hired a furnished house for the winter, had invited her to spend the season with her, and she was now snugly ensconced in most delightful quarters on Twenty-second Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

* * * * *

“Sometimes,” she wrote, “I half suspect Mrs. Ellsworth did not think I would jump at her invitation so quick, but I don’t care.  The doctor, for some reason or other, has deferred our marriage until spring, and dear knows I am not coming back to horrid Spring Bank any sooner than I can help.

“By the way, I’m somewhat haunted with the dread that, after all, Adah may take it into her willful head to go to Terrace Hill, and I would not have her for the world.  How does Alice get on with Hugh?  I conclude he must be well by this time.  Does he wear his pants inside his cowhides yet, or have Alice’s blue eyes had a refining effect upon his pantaloons?  Tell him not to set his heart upon her, for, to my certain knowledge, Irving Stanley, Esq., has an interest in that quarter, while she is not indifferent.