to give her up. Anna, do you know what
my mother wrote me? Listen, while I tell, then see if she is not to
blame. She cruelly reminded me that by my father's will all of us, save
you, were wholly dependent upon her, and said the moment I threw myself
away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she'd cast me off,
and I might earn my bread and hers as best I could. She said, too, my
sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned what she wrote, and your opinion had
more weight than all the rest."

"Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my words. Surely my
note explained--I sent one in mother's letter."

"It never reached me," John said, while Anna sighed at this proof of her
mother's treachery.

Always conciliatory, however, she soon remarked:

"You are sole male heir to the Richards name. Mother's heart and pride
are bound up in you. A poor, unknown girl would only add to our
expenses, and not help you in the least. What was her name? I've never
heard."

John hesitated, then answered: "I called her Lily, she was so fair and
pure."

Anna was never in the least suspicious, but took all things for granted,
so now she thought within herself, "Lilian, most likely." Then she said:
"You were not engaged to her, were you?"

John started forward, and gazed into his sister's face with an
expression as if he wished she would question him more closely, but Anna
never dreamed of a secret, and seeing him hesitate, she said:

"You need not tell me unless you like. I only thought, maybe, you and
Lily were not engaged."

"We were. Anna, I'm a wretch--a miserable wretch, and have scarcely
known an hour's peace since I left her."

"Was there a scene?" Anna asked; and John replied:

"Worse than that. Worse for her. She did not know I was going till I was
gone. I wrote to her from Paris, for I could not meet her face and tell
her how mean I was. I've thought of her so much, and when I landed in
New York I went at once to find her, or at least to inquire, hoping
she'd forgotten me. The beldame who kept the place was not the same with
whom I had left Lily, but she know about her, and told me she died with
cholera last September. She and--oh, Lily, Lily--" and hiding his face
in Anna's lap, John Richards, whom we have only seen as a traveled
dandy, sobbed like a little child.

"John," she said at last, when the sobbing had ceased, "You say this
Lily was good. Do you mean she was a Christian, like Charlie?"

"Yes, if there