just as it lay in its humble coffin, over the
deception of eighteen years, her heart bounded with one wild, yearning
throb, for every bleeding fiber clung with a deathlike grasp to her
who had been so suddenly taken from her. "I love her still!" she
cried; "but can I take her back?" And then commenced the fiercest
struggle of all, the battling of love and pride, the one rebelling
against the child of Hagar Warren, and the other clamoring loudly that
without that child the world to her was nothing. It was the hour of
Madam Conway's humiliation, and in bitterness of spirit she groaned:
"That I should come to this! Theo first, and Margaret, my bright, my
beautiful Margaret, next! Oh, how can I give her up when I loved her
best of all--best of all!"

This was true, for all the deeper, stronger love of Madam Conway's
nature had gone forth to the merry, gleeful girl whose graceful,
independent bearing she had so often likened to herself and the
haughty race with which she claimed relationship. How was this
illusion dispelled! Margaret was not a Conway, nor yet a Davenport. A
servant-girl had been her mother, and of her father there was nothing
known. Madam Conway was one who seldom wept for grief. She had stood
calmly at the bedside of her dying husband, had buried her only
daughter from her sight, had met with many reverses, and shed for
all no tears, but now they fell like rain upon her face, burning,
blistering as they fell, but bringing no relief.

"I shall miss her in the morning," she cried, "miss her at noon,
miss her in the lonesome nights, miss her everywhere--oh, Margaret,
Margaret, 'tis more than I can bear! Come back to me now, just as you
are. I want you here--here where the pain is hardest," and she clasped
her arms tightly over her heaving bosom. Then her pride returned
again, and with it came thoughts of Arthur Carrollton. He would scoff
at her as weak and sentimental; he would never take beyond the sea a
bride of "Hagarish" birth; and duty demanded that she too should be
firm, and sanction his decision. "But when he's gone," she whispered,
"when he has left America behind, I'll find her, if my life is spared.
I'll find poor Margaret, and see that she does not want, though I must
not take her back."

This resolution, however, did not bring her comfort, and the hands
pressed so convulsively upon her side could not ease her pain. Surely
never before had so dark an hour infolded that haughty woman, and a
pra