t was a Miss
Herndon, who had accompanied him from New Orleans to visit her aunt,
Mrs. Russell.

"He says she's an heiress, and very beautiful," rejoined Ida, seating
herself at the piano.

Instantly catching at the words "heiress" and "beautiful," Henry
started up, asking "if it would be against all the rules of propriety
for him to call upon her thus early."

"I think it would," was George's brief answer, while Mary's eyes
flashed scornfully upon the young man, who, rather crestfallen,
announced himself ready to listen to Ida whom he secretly styled "an
old maid," because since his first remembrance she had treated him
with perfect indifference.

That night before retiring the three girls sat down by the cheerful
fire in Mary's room to talk over the events of the day, when Mary
suddenly asked Ida to tell her truly, if it were not George who had
paid her bills at Mount Holyoke.

"What bills?" said Jenny, to whom the idea was new while Ida replied,
"And suppose it was?"

"I am sorry," answered Mary, laying her head upon the table.

"What a silly girl," said Ida. "He was perfectly able, and more than
willing, so why do you care?"

"I do not like being so much indebted to any one," was Mary's reply,
and yet in her secret heart there was a strange feeling of pleasure in
the idea that George had thus cared for her, for would he have done
so, if--. She dared not finish that question even to herself,--dared
not ask if she hoped that George Moreland loved her one half as well
as she began to think she had always loved him. Why should he, with
his handsome person and princely fortune, love one so unworthy, and so
much beneath him? And then, for the first time, she thought of her
changed position since last they met. Then she was a poor, obscure
schoolmistress,--now, flattered, caressed, and an heiress. Years
before, when a little pauper at Chicopee, she had felt unwilling that
George should know how destitute she was, and now in the time of her
prosperity she was equally desirous that he should, for a time at
least, remain ignorant of her present condition.

"Ida," said she, lifting her head from the table "does George know
that I am Mrs. Campbell's niece?"

"No," answered Ida, "I wanted to tell him, but Aunt Martha said I'd
better not."

"Don't then," returned Mary, and resuming her former position she fell
into a deep reverie, from which she was at last aroused, by Jenny's
asking "if she intended to sit up all