a readily responded.

"Well, then," continued the lady, "I am invited to spend a week at
the residence of a friend who lives near Rhinebeck, a little way up
the Hudson. Quite a party are going also, and great preparations have
been made for us. In fact, it is to be a sort of carnival, on a small
scale, and is to wind up with a grand ball. Now, I want you to go with
me, Ruth, to help arrange my different costumes, and to act as a kind
of dressing-maid--you have such good taste and judgment. Will you go?
You will, of course, be relieved from your regular work, while, perhaps,
you will find the rest and change agreeable."

Mona thought a few moments before replying.

Her only objection to going with Mrs. Montague was she feared she might
meet people whom she had known and associated with before her uncle died.
She dreaded to be ignored or treated rudely by old acquaintances. She
could not forget her recent experience at Macy's.

But she reasoned that she might not see any one whom she knew; she had
never met Mrs. Montague in society, and her circle of friends might be
entirely different from those with whom she had mingled. She longed for
a respite from ceaseless stitching, and for some change of scene, and she
finally resolved to go.

"Why, yes, I am perfectly willing to attend you if you wish," she said at
last.

"Thank you--you have relieved my mind of quite a burden, for I feared you
might decline my request," Mrs. Montague returned, and then went away to
do her packing.

They were to leave New York that afternoon, but Mona had not once thought
that Louis Hamblin would be likely to be one of the party, until he
joined Mrs. Montague at the station.

There were a dozen or fifteen people in the party, and the young man was
devotedly attentive to a pretty dark-eyed girl, who was addressed as
Kitty McKenzie.

His eyes lighted with a flash of pleasure, however, the moment he caught
sight of Mona, although he betrayed no other sign that he had ever seen
her before.

The fair girl flushed with indignation at this slight.

Not because she was at all anxious to have him take notice of her, but
because he failed to treat her, in the presence of his friends and social
equals, with the courtesy which he had always been so eager to show her
elsewhere.

It was a very gay party, and, as a drawing-room car had been chartered
for their especial use, there was nothing to impose any restraint upon
them, and mirth and pleas