d upon the
floor.

Miss White continued, angrily:

"I took you in as an honest girl and treated you kindly. In return you
imposed on me, disgraced my house, and broke up my business!"

"Oh, madame!"

"Two of my best hands have quit me in disgust, and the other three
threaten to go unless I turn you away at once. Do you know the reason,
pray?"

Crimson with shame, Dainty dropped forlornly before her with
down-dropped eyes, speechless with fear, and the woman continued,
sharply:

"Take off that cape you've been shrouded in all the winter, pretending
to suffer from the cold, and let me see if it is really hiding your
disgrace."

"Oh, spare me!"

"Do as I bid you! There! I've dragged it off in spite of you! Oh, for
shame--shame! How could you be so wicked with that innocent face?"

"Oh, I am not as bad as you think! I--I--"

"Hush! You can't excuse your disgrace. Mr. Sparks told me all along you
were a bad girl, and told me when we became engaged I must send you to
the right-about before we were married. But, somehow, I couldn't believe
ill of you, till I see it now with my own eyes."

"Oh! may I stay till to-morrow? You will not drive me out into the
streets to-night?" imploringly.

"I ought to do it to pay you for cheating me so; but I'm a Christian
woman, and, somehow, I pity you, and I can't be hard on you. You may
stay to-night; but you must leave in the morning directly after
breakfast. There's a hospital in this city for poor girls that's gone
astray like you. You can go there, and the good doctor will take you in
and let you stay till your child is born. Then you can put it in the
foundlings' home and some good people may adopt it."

"Merciful God, have pity!" shrilled over the girl's tortured lips, as
she sank on her knees, overcome by the horror of her thoughts.

Her child--Love Ellsworth's lawful heir--to be born in a home for "girls
gone astray," and placed in a foundlings' home, to be "adopted by some
good people." Had she come to this? She, whose future had promised so
radiantly nine brief months ago! A wild prayer to Heaven broke from her
pallid lips:

"Oh, God! take us both--the forsaken mother and child--to heaven!"

"It's too late to take on now. Better behaved yourself right at first,"
the old maid admonished her; adding, soothingly: "Go to bed now, and
I'll send to-morrow for the good doctor to come and take you to the
lying-in hospital."

But in the gray dawn of the cold morning