rsations during previous visits when
she had no interest whatever in the inmates, Josephine Harris had an
impression that this house was the abode of the Crawfords; and it was
upon that supposition that she began her enquiries.

"Let me see--I almost forget," she said, pausing in their swing, and
with the air of one trying very hard to remember--"Who was it that used
to live in the big house yonder on the hill? Thompson? Johnson? What was
the name?"

"The big house? oh, Crawford--the Crawfords live there," answered Susan,
very innocently.

"Oh, yes, the name _was_ Crawford," said Joe. "Let me see--there was an
old man--"

"Yes, old John Crawford," so Susan supplied the missing name.

"And he had one daughter--only one daughter, and only one _child_, I
think," said Josephine, working her features into a terrible semblance
of trying to recollect something in the past, that had almost escaped
her.

"Why yes, he had only one child, Mary," said Susan, evincing a little
surprise. "But I did not know that you ever met her, so as to take any
interest in her."

"Humph! well, I never did meet her, except at church," said the city
girl, evasively. "But you were pretty young, then, and you would
scarcely have remembered it if I had. I remember thinking that the old
house must be a nice place for living in the country, and I thought of
it again this morning. Is the old man living still?"

Less unsophisticated persons than little Susan Halstead might have been
led into pursuing a subject of village gossip, by so specious a trap as
that set by Josephine; and it is not strange that she fell at once into
the line of conversation that the other desired.

"Yes, old Mr. Crawford is still living," said Susy, "and that is about
all that can be said. He is old and very feeble, and they have been
expecting him to die any day for the past three or four months. And that
is not all--as you seem to have known something about Mary, I do not
care if I tell you. There is serious trouble in that house, Cousin
Josey!"

"Trouble?" echoed the young girl. "Indeed! why what is the matter?"

"It is a long story," said Susan, "but perhaps I can tell it without
using many words. You know that the Crawfords are richer than most of us
here--they say that the old man is _very_ rich--and so they belong to
the aristocracy and do not associate with everybody. Mary is older than
myself, a year or two, but we were at school together. We have not had
mu