is the dictionary!" she exclaimed, in
a most astonished voice. "Did you think I had need of that?"

The old lady flushed painfully. It was well known that it was one of her
weak points to guard carefully from the world that she had no education
whatever.

She would rather have died than to have let people know that she had at
one time been a poor working-woman; and now this stranger, who had been
only a hours beneath her roof, had discovered it.

She did not know what remark to make to Mrs. Brown, she was so aghast
when the dictionary was handed her.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"You have made a very wise selection, Mrs. Brown," she said. "I quite
agree with you that there is no book more instructive than the
dictionary. You may read me twenty pages, or such a matter. I deem it
very instructive, indeed--to you."

With a gasp, Dorothy took the book. Oh, how tedious it was, pronouncing
word after word, and giving their definitions!

Every now and then Mrs. Garner would nod her head, remarking that such
and such a word it would be well for her to take extra pains to
remember, as they were in such general use in every-day conversation.

At length she ceased to make remarks altogether, and when Dorothy
glanced up at her through the blue glasses which she wore, she found
that the old lady was fast asleep, and with a very tired look on her
face.

Dorothy laid down the book with a sigh, crossed her thin little white
hands in her lap, and gave herself up to conflicting thoughts.

Only a little while before Jack had loved her so devotedly, and now he
was about to marry Jessie, her friend of other days, whom he scarcely
noticed when she was only Dorothy's friend.

While she was meditating over the matter, one of the maids put her head
in at the door.

"If you please, Mrs. Brown, would you mind coming to Miss Staples a few
moments?" she asked. "Her maid has leave of absence this week, and she
misses her services."

"I will go with pleasure," said Dorothy, rising and following her at
once.

As she entered the pretty blue-and-gold _boudoir_, she saw that Jessie
had changed her mind about going to the opera that evening, for she was
already dressed in opera attire.

"You wished to see me?" said Dorothy, in a husky voice.

"If you please, Mrs. Brown," said Jessie. "I should like you to
accompany Mr. Garner and myself to the opera to-night, as my maid--that
is, if Jack's mother has no objection, of course."

She did no