er--I did it, Maggie Miller; I took you from
the pine-board cradle where you lay--I dressed you in the other baby's
clothes--I laid you on her pillow--I wrapped her in your coarse white
frock--I said that she was mine, and Margaret--oh, Heaven! can't you
see it? Don't you know that I, the shriveled, skinny hag who tells you
this, am your own grandmother!"

There was no need for Maggie Miller to answer that appeal. The words
had burned into her soul--scorching her very life-blood, and maddening
her brain. It was a fearful blow--crushing her at once. She saw it
all, understood it all, and knew there was no hope. The family pride
at which she had often laughed was strong within her, and could not at
once be rooted out. All the fond household memories, though desecrated
and trampled down, were not so soon to be forgotten. She could not own
that half-crazed woman for her grandmother! As Hagar talked Maggie had
risen, and now, tall, and erect as the mountain ash which grew on her
native hills, she stood before Hagar, every vestige of color faded
from her face, her eyes dark as midnight and glowing like coals of
living fire, while her hands, locked despairingly together, moved
slowly towards Hagar, as if to thrust her aside.

"Oh, speak again!" she said, "but not the dreadful words you said to
me just now. Tell me they are false--say that my father perished in
the storm, that my mother was she who held me on her bosom when she
died--that I--oh, Hagar, I am not--I will not be the creature you say
I am! Speak to me," she continued; "tell me; is it true?" and in her
voice there was not the olden sound.

Hoarse--hollow--full of reproachful anguish it seemed; and, bowing her
head in very shame, old Hagar made her answer: "Would to Heaven 'twere
not true--but it is--it is! Kill me, Maggie," she continued, "strike
me dead, if you will, but take your eyes away! You must not look thus
at me, a heartbroken wretch."

But not of Hagar Warren was Maggie thinking then. The past, the
present, and the future were all embodied in her thoughts. She had
been an intruder all her life; had ruled with a high hand people on
whom she had no claim, and who, had they known her parentage, would
have spurned her from them. Theo, whom she had held in her arms so
oft, calling her sister and loving her as such, was hers no longer;
nor yet the fond woman who had cherished her so tenderly--neither was
hers; and in fancy she saw the look of scorn upon that