rom the best authority--on the
platform with old Tozer. And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been
there could dare to look you in the face!--"

"I was there myself," said Mr. May. "It amused me very much. Tell me now
about this young person. Is she an impostor, taking people in, or what
is it all about? Ursula looks as if she was in the trick herself, and
had been found out."

"I am _sure_ she is not an impostor," said Ursula. "An impostor! If you
had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful, splendid ball. I never
saw anything like it. I was nobody there--nobody--and neither were
Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy--but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I
suppose," the girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; "when
people are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes, I
don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake."

"That's me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; "that is one of Ursula's
assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am fond of news; and I never
said she was an impostor. Poor girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I
think she is a good girl, trying to do her duty to her relations. She
didn't choose her own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in
it, she would have made a very different choice. But whether your papa
may think her a proper friend for you--being Tozer's granddaughter, Miss
Ursula, that's quite a different business, I am bound to say."

Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride, and nothing
else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give in. Mrs. Hurst to
triumph over her, and to give her opinion as to what papa might think
proper! Ursula turned her back upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil,
fearing every moment some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the
kind came. He asked quite quietly after a while, "Where did you meet
this young lady?" without any perceptible inflection of anger in his
tone.

"Why, papa," cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent,
"everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else
since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know;
Reginald, _you_ know! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne."

"Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people at whose house it
was."

"Copperhead, papa," said Ursula, rousing herself. "If Cousin Anne does
not know a lady from a common person, who does, I wonder? It was Cousin
Anne who introduced me to her (I think). Their name