this picture lying beneath it.
I was very much startled to find how much it resembles me. Who can she
be, Mrs. Montague?" and Mona lifted a pair of innocently wondering eyes
to the frowning face above her.

For a moment the woman seemed to be trying to read her very soul; then
she remarked, through her set teeth:

"It is more like you, or you are more like it than I thought. Did you
never see a picture like it before?"

"No, never," Mona replied, so positively that Mrs. Montague could not
doubt the truth of her statement. "Is it the likeness of some relative of
yours?" she asked, determined if possible to sift the matter to the
bottom.

"A _relative? No_, I _hope_ not. The girl's name was Mona Forester,
and--I _hated_ her!"

"Mona Forester!" repeated Mona to herself, with a great inward start,
though she made no outward sign, while a feeling of bitter disappointment
swept over her heart.

It could not then have been a picture of her mother, she thought, for her
name must have been Mona Dinsmore, unless--strange that she had not
thought of it when she read that advertisement in the paper--unless she
had been the half-sister of her Uncle Walter.

"You hated _her_?" Mona murmured aloud, with her tender, devouring glance
fastened upon the beautiful face.

The tone and emphasis seemed to arouse all the passion of the woman's
nature.

"Yes, with my whole soul!" she fiercely cried, and before Mona was aware
of her intention, she had snatched the picture from her hands, and torn
it into four pieces.

"There!" she continued, tossing the fragments upon the floor, "that is
the last of that; I am sure! I don't know why I have kept the miserable
thing all these years."

Mona could have cried aloud at this wanton destruction of what she would
have regarded as priceless, but she dared make no sign, although she was
trembling in every nerve.

"Is the lady living?" she ventured to inquire, as she turned away,
apparently to fold a dress, but really to conceal the painful quivering
of her lips.

"No. You can finish packing this trunk, then you may take these dresses
to the sewing-room. You may begin ripping this brown one. And you may
take the pieces of that picture down and tell Mary to burn them. I came
up for a wrap; I am going for a drive."

Mrs. Montague secured her wrap, then swept from the room, walking
fiercely over the torn portrait, looking as if she would have been glad
to trample thus upon the living girl w