e might be beneficial to her health.

Miss Martha inquired if Jenny knew how Edith Malcome was getting along.

"I have just come from her," said Jenny; "she is very much changed. All
her beautiful hair has been cut away, and she is, O, so thin and wasted!
But they call her slowly improving."

"Who takes care of her?" asked Miss P.

"Her waiting-woman, Sylva, I believe," returned Jenny.

"Well, it must be very hard for her to do it all the time," said Martha;
"if they would just ask me, I would go any time and assist them."

"Mrs. Edson is there considerable," remarked Jenny.

"I know she is; most too much for her credit," returned Miss Pinkerton;
"if a man has a wife, he wants her at home sometimes."

"Why, Martha!" observed Mrs. Stanhope, mildly; "I never heard a
reproachful word of Mrs. Edson breathed by any person."

"Neither did I," said Jenny, rising; "and if I do, I shan't believe it,
for I think she is the dearest, sweetest creature in the world."

"With the exception of one Mr. Richard Giblet," remarked Miss Pinkerton,
in a tone she conceived to be vastly witty and piquant.

Jenny's blush, as she bade good-morning, crowned the malicious maiden's
triumph.

On this same morning, Mrs. Edson sat at her elegant rosewood piano,
carelessly striking the ivory keys, when she heard a light footstep, and
turning, beheld Col. Malcome advancing to her side. She was a little
angry that he had entered unannounced, and her cheeks flushed, as she
rather briefly bade him welcome.

"I beg your pardon for entering so informally," said he, at once
interpreting the expression of her face. "Your doors were all ajar, and
I saw no one to announce me."

"Had you rung, some one would have appeared," said Louise, with a slight
curl of her red lip.

"Well, I beg your pardon for not doing so," returned he. "Will you grant
it?"

There was something in the rueful appearance he assumed, which forced
her to laugh in spite of her efforts at dignity and restraint, and thus
he was reinstated in her good graces.

"Are you playing?" he asked, touching his own fingers upon the keys, but
at a respectful distance from hers.

"No," she returned. "I have practised so little of late I have lost all
my ear. Won't you favor me with that thrilling piece from Beethoven, you
performed on the first evening of our acquaintance?" She looked eagerly
in his face as she spoke.

"What will you do for me if I will?" he asked.

"O, anything in m