Any but a heart of stone would have yielded at once, but ’Lina was too supremely selfish.  Hugh had twenty-five dollars.  He might give her half, or even ten.  She’d be satisfied with ten.  He could soon make that up.  The negro hire came due ere long.  He must have forgotten that.

No, he had not; but with the negro hire came debts, thoughts of which gave him the old worn look his mother had observed.  Only ten dollars!  It did seem hard to refuse, and if ’Lina went Hugh wished her to look well, for underneath his apparent harshness lurked a kind of pride in his dark sister, whose beauty was of the bold, dashing style.

“Take them,” he said at last, counting out the ten with a half-regretful sigh.  “Make them go as far as you can, and, Ad, remember, don’t get into debt.”

“I won’t,” and with a civil “Thank you,” ’Lina rolled up her bills, while Hugh sought his mother, and sitting down beside her said, abruptly: 

“Mother, are you sure that man is dead?—­Ad’s father I mean?”

There was a nervous start, a sudden paling of Mrs. Worthington’s cheek, and then she answered, sadly: 

“I suppose so, of course.  I received a paper containing a marked announcement of his death, giving accurately his name and age.  There could be no mistake.  Why do you ask that question?”

“Nothing, only I’ve been thinking of him this morning.  There’s a mark on Adah’s temple similar to Ad’s, only not so plain, and I did not know but she might possibly be related.  Have you noticed it?”

“’Lina pointed it out last night, but to me it seemed a spreading vein, nothing more.  Hugh!” and Mrs. Worthington grasped his arm with a vehemence unusual to her accustomed quiet manner, “you seem to know Adah’s later history.  Do you know her earlier?  Who is she?  Where did she come from?”

“I’m going to her now; will you come, too?” she said, and accordingly both together ascended to the chamber where Adah sat before the fire with Willie on her lap, her glossy hair, which Lulu’s skillful fingers had arranged, combed smoothly down upon her forehead, so as to hide the mysterious mark, if mark there were, on that fair skin.

Something in the expression of her face as she turned toward Mrs. Worthington made that lady start, while her heart throbbed with an indefinable emotion.  Who was Adah Hastings, and why was she so drawn toward her?

Addressing to her some indifferent remark, she gradually led the conversation backward to the subject of her early home, asking again what she could remember, but Adah was scarcely more satisfactory than on the previous night.  Memories she had of a gentle lady, who must have been her mother, of a lad who called her sister, and kissed her sometimes, of a cottage with grass and flowers, and bees buzzing beneath the trees.

“Are you faint?” Hugh asked, quickly, as his mother turned white as ashes, and leaned against the mantel.