his hands he moaned in anguish; then, growing suddenly calm,
he snatched up the letter, which had fallen to the floor, and read it
aloud; while Madam Conway, stupefied with horror, sank at his feet,
and clasping her hands above her head, rocked to and fro, but made no
word of comment. Far down the long ago her thoughts were straying, and
gathering up many bygone scenes which told her that what she heard was
true.

"Yes, 'tis true," she groaned; and then, powerless to speak another
word, she laid her head upon a chair, while Mr. Carrollton, preferring
to be alone, sought the solitude of his own room, where unobserved
he could wrestle with his sorrow and conquer his inborn pride, which
whispered to him that a Carrollton must not wed a bride so far beneath
him.

Only a moment, though, and then the love he bore for Maggie Miller
rolled back upon him with an overwhelming power, while his better
judgment, with that love, came hand in hand, pleading for the fair
young girl, who, now that he had lost her, seemed a thousandfold
dearer than before. But he had not lost her; he would find her. She
was Maggie Miller still to him, and though old Hagar's blood were in
her veins he would not give her up. This resolution once made, it
could not be shaken, and when half an hour or more was passed he
walked with firm, unfaltering footsteps back to the apartment where
Madam Conway still sat upon the floor, her head resting upon the
chair, and her frame convulsed with grief.

Her struggle had been a terrible one, and it was not over yet, for
with her it was more than a matter of pride and love. Her daughter's
rights had been set at naught; a wrong had been done to the dead; the
child who slept beneath the pine had been neglected; nay, in life, had
been, perhaps, despised for an intruder, for one who had no right to
call her grandmother; and shudderingly she cried, "Why was it suffered
thus to be?" Then as she thought of white-haired Hagar Warren, she
raised her hand to curse her, but the words died on her lips, for
Hagar's deed had brought to her much joy; and now, as she remembered
the bounding step, the merry laugh, the sunny face, and loving words
which had made her later years so happy, she involuntarily stretched
out her arms in empty air, moaning sadly: "I want her here. I want
her now, just as she used to be." Then, over the grave of her buried
daughter, over the grave of the sickly child, whose thin, blue face
came up before her