isk
of losing the whole of my money. Still, I did want you to marry Kitty
McKenzie: I wanted you to fortify yourself with additional wealth."

"I have suspected that the girl was Mona all along," Louis quietly
remarked.

"Oh, have you?" sharply retorted his aunt, as she studied his face with
suspicious eyes. "Perhaps you have been plotting to marry her for the
sole purpose of getting this fortune wholly under your control."

"Pshaw! Aunt Margie, how foolish you are! Haven't I always worked for
your interests? More than that, haven't you always assured me that the
fortune would be mine eventually? Why, then, should I plot for it?" the
young man replied, in soothing tones, but coloring beneath her glance. "I
tell you," he went on, a note of passion in his voice, "I love the girl;
I would even be willing to marry her without a dollar in prospect, and
then go to work to support her. Now come, do not let us quarrel over
imaginary troubles, but unite our forces for our mutual benefit. It
will be far safer for you if she becomes my wife, for then you will
have nothing to fear, and I shall have won the desire of my heart."

"Well, it will have to be, I suppose," said Mrs. Montague, moodily. "I
wonder how I was ever so deceived though, when she looks so like Mona
Forester. I can understand now why Ray Palmer was so attentive to her at
Hazeldean. Strange it never occurred to me, when I saw him waiting upon
her, that she was Mona Montague, and they must have had a quiet laugh by
themselves over having so thoroughly hoodwinked us."

"They didn't hoodwink me," Mr. Hamblin affirmed, with a sly smile; "I
knew all the time who she was."

"I don't see how you knew it," Mrs. Montague retorted, impatiently.

"I will tell you. I was in Macy's one day when the girl ran across some
acquaintances. She bowed and smiled to them, as I suppose she had always
been in the habit of doing; but the petted darlings of _le bon ton_ drew
themselves up haughtily, stared rudely at her, and passed on, while the
poor child flushed, then paled, and looked ready to drop. A moment later,
the two proud misses shot by me, one of them remarking with curling lips
and a toss of her head, 'Do you suppose that Mona Montague expects that
we are going to recognize her now?'"

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Mrs. Montague angrily demanded.

"Because I knew that, if you suspected her identity, you would turn her
out of the house forthwith, and then I should