son. Then about his son, the doctor. If Cora's old
nurse-girl, who was kept on in the house as a servant, though she was
past her usefulness, lied in court when she said she saw Tom and me
kissing at such an hour, in such a place, still, the truth was that I
had at different times kissed Tom. You can't tell why it seems all right
to you to kiss one man when it would seem a very queer thing to do to
kiss another. When Tom had been away for any length of time, I always
kissed him when he came back; it seemed natural to both of us. But there
in court I had to try to appear as if I never could have descended to
committing such an immoral act, as well as to give the impression that
if I'd known the old man had any notion of making me co-heir with his
own children I would have strained every nerve to stop it, called them
all in to help me curb him if necessary. Pshaw! the humbug of it turns
my stomach now. Leslie, my verdict is, you can't come through a law-suit
_clean_. I'd give a good deal to cut that page out of my life."

Aurora's eyes, filled with the shadows of the past, and her face, with
the dimples expunged, were to Leslie almost unfamiliar. Aurora,
oppressed in her moral nature, gave a glimpse of herself that would
change and enlarge the composite of her aspects carried in Leslie's
mind.

"There, stop thinking of it!" said Estelle. "You always work yourself up
so."

"The point of my coming bright and early like this," Leslie nimbly
managed a diversion, "was, as you have guessed, to catch you before you
could possibly go out. My mother desires you, dear ladies, to accompany
me back to lunch--a triumphal lunch, Aurora, to grace which she has
collected those special pillars of society whose countenance and support
ought to make you scornful of any little weed-like growth of gossip that
might sprout up from seed of Charlie's sowing. You know them all more or
less, having been associated with every one of them in some form of
beneficence. I might more accurately describe it: having donated largely
to each of their pet charities. It is not a very admirable world--"
Leslie's young face took that little air of knowing the world which
sometimes amused old gentlemen so much, "it is a selfish society, not
indisposed, or, I am afraid, altogether displeased, to believe evil of
its neighbor, and not always disinclined to turn and rend its favorites.
But it would be a pity, really, if you should have poured forth upon it
as yo