ered your identity in spite
of your clever efforts to represent some one else--or rather to conceal
your personality. I know that you are Mona Montague, the daughter of my
aunt's husband and a girl named Mona Forester--"

"Stay!" cried Mona, starting again to her feet, her eyes blazing. "I will
not hear my mother spoken of with any disrespect."

"I beg your pardon; I had no intention of wounding you thus," said the
young man, regretfully, and flushing. "I simply wished you to understand
that I had discovered your identity; and since you have now virtually
acknowledged it, by asserting that Mona Forester was your mother, I beg
you will be reasonable, and talk the matter over calmly with me, and
hear what I have to propose to you."

Mona sank weakly back.

She saw that it would be worse than useless to deny what he had asserted;
she had indeed betrayed and acknowledged too much for that.

"Very well. I will listen to what you wish to say, but be kind enough to
be brief, for I have no desire to prolong this interview beyond what is
absolutely necessary for your purpose," she said, with freezing dignity.

"Well, then," Louis Hamblin began, "I have known who you were ever since
you came into Aunt Margie's house as a seamstress."

Then he went on to explain how he learned it, and Mona, remembering the
incident but too well, saw that it would be best to quietly accept the
fact of his knowledge.

"Does Mrs. Montague also know?" she asked, with breathless eagerness.

"She suspected you at first," he evasively answered, "but you so
diplomatically replied to her questions--you were so self-possessed under
all circumstances, and especially so when one day you found a picture of
your mother, that she was forced to believe your strange resemblance to
Mona Forester only a coincidence."

CHAPTER XI.

MONA IN A TRYING POSITION.

Mona breathed more freely, for she believed from his evasive reply that
Mrs. Montague did not now believe her to be Mona Forester's child.

"I beg you will not tell her," she said, impulsively, and then instantly
regretted having made the request.

The young man's face lighted.

If they could have a common secret he believed that he should make some
headway in his wooing.

"That will depend upon how kind you are to me," he said, meaningly.

Mona's head went up haughtily again. His presumption, his assurance, both
annoyed and angered her.

He affected not to notice her manner, and as