ester, though she talked much of their
father; and Margaret, listening to his praises, felt herself
insensibly drawn towards this new claimant for her filial love. "I
wish I could have seen him," she said; and, starting to her feet, Rose
answered: "Strange I did not think of it before. We have his portrait.
Come this way," and she led the half-unwilling Maggie into an
adjoining room, where from the wall a portly, good-humored-looking man
gazed down upon the sisters, his eyes seeming to rest with mournful
tenderness on the face of her whom in life they had not looked upon.
He seemed older than Maggie had supposed, and the hair upon his head
was white, reminding her of Hagar. But she did not for this turn away
from him. There was something pleasing in the mild expression of his
face, and she whispered faintly, "'Tis my father."

On the right of this portrait was another, the picture of a woman, in
whose curling lip and soft brown eyes Maggie recognized the mother of
Henry. To the left was another still, and she gazed upon the angel
face, with eyes of violet blue, and hair of golden brown, on which the
fading sunlight now was falling, encircling it as it were with a halo
of glory.

"You are much like her," she said to Rose, who made no answer, for she
was thinking of another picture, which years before had been banished
to the garret by her haughty grandmother, as unworthy a place beside
him who had petted and caressed the young girl of plebeian birth and
kindred.

"I can make amends for it, though," thought Rose, returning with
Maggie to the parlor. Then, seeking out her husband, she held with him
a whispered consultation, the result of which was that on the morrow
there was a rummaging in the garret, an absence from home for an
hour or two, and when about noon she returned there was a pleased
expression on her face, as if she had accomplished her purpose,
whatever it might have been.

All that morning Maggie had been restless and uneasy, wandering
listlessly from room to room, looking anxiously down the street,
starting nervously at the sound of every footstep, while her cheeks
alternately flushed and then grew pale as the day passed on. Dinner
being over she sat alone in the parlor, her eyes fixed upon the
carpet, and her thoughts away with one who she vaguely hoped would
have followed her ere this. True, she had added no postscript to tell
him of her new discovery; but Hagar knew, and he would go to her for a
con