minute."

"You know her grandchild?"

"Yes, I do, and a prettier creature never lived."

"You know her, and will tell me?"

"Indeed, I will do nothing of the sort," answered Margaret, for she had
thrown off the jaunty abbreviation of her name. "There is something
about all this that puzzles me. People that I never expected to see
again keep crossing my path like ghosts, and somehow most of them have
something to do with that time. Why can't the whole thing rest? I'm sure
that poor old woman, Yates, has had her punishment, and I don't want to
talk about what I don't understand."

"You are wise," said Closs, whose face had lost all its cheerfulness;
"there is no good in even thinking of a dead past, and, as you say, that
poor old woman has her punishment. I am glad you have said nothing of
these things to my sister, or Lady Clara."

"Why should I?" said Margaret, with shrewd good sense: "what good would
it do? In fact, what do I know? I only hope no such trouble will ever
come to this house."

"Heaven forbid!" said Closs, fervently, and the two parted.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ITALIAN TEACHER.

Lady Clara was right. Olympia had brought her daughter to London after a
professional tour on the continent, not as her daughter. Olympia would
not force herself to admit that the tall Juno-like girl, who outshone
her in beauty, and rebuked her flippant grace by a dignity at once calm
and regal, could, by any possibility, be her own offspring, at least as
yet. She had arranged it with Brown that no public acknowledgment of
Caroline's relationship should be made, and that she should pass as an
adopted child or protege, at least until her success on the operatic
stage was confirmed.

Brown had stipulated, on his part, that the girl should receive her
musical training in strict privacy, so far as that was possible, and, in
no case, should be moved from his personal supervision, a condition that
Olympia accepted with delight, for, after a month or two, she began to
feel the presence of her cast-off husband something of a restraint, and
regarded the quick growth and blooming loveliness of the young girl as
almost a wrong to her own ripe beauty. Still she would not loosen her
hold as a parent on the girl's life, but still hoped to reap a golden
harvest from her talent, and sun her own charms, as they waned, in the
splendor of her child's beauty.

With these feelings, Olympia opened her campaign in Europe, and swept a
br