rt with flowers. You know Mrs. Tarrant
gives her ball to-night, and Miss Olga says she has saved herself,
rested all day, to be fresh for it. Lou-Lou has just come to dress
her hair. What a pity you can't go too, you look quite old enough.
Miss Olga has such a gay, splendid time."

"I do not want to go. I only wish I could lie down and sleep for
ever. Shut the door, and ask them all please to let me alone this
evening."

How the richness of the furniture and the elegance that prevailed
throughout this house mocked the threadbare raiment and
poverty-stricken aspect of the man who threatened to drag her down to
his own lower plane of life and association? Her innate pride, and
her cultivated fondness for all beautiful objects, rebelled at the
picture which her imagination painted in such sombre hues, and with a
bitter cry of shame and dread she bowed her head against the marble
mantlepiece.

For many years she had known that some unfortunate cloud hung over
her own and her mother's history, but faith in the latter, and a
perfect trust in the wisdom and goodness of Mr. Hargrove, had
encouraged her in every previous hour of disquiet and apprehension.
Until to-day the positive and hideous ghoul of disgrace had never
actually confronted her, and with the intuitive hopefulness of youth,
she had waved aside all forebodings, believing that at the proper
time her mother would satisfactorily explain the necessity for the
mystery of her conduct. Was Mr. Lindsay acquainted with some terrible
trouble that threatened her future when in bidding her farewell he
had said he would gladly shield her, were it possible, from trials
that he foresaw would be her portion?

Did he know all, and would he love her less, if that bold bad man
should prove his paternal claim to her? Her father! As she tried to
face the possibility, it was with difficulty that she smothered a
passionate cry, and throwing herself across the foot of the bed,
buried her face in her hands.

If she could only run away and go to India, where Mr. Lindsay would
shield, pity, and love her! How gratefully she thought of him at this
juncture,--how noble, tender, and generous he had always been! what a
haven of safety and rest his presence would be now!

As a very dear brother she had ever regarded him, for her affection,
though intense and profound, was as entirely free from all taint of
sentimentality, as that which she entertained for his mother; and her
pure young he