eeling of distrust. "What have I said to startle you?" she asked.

"Nothing! I am nervous in stormy weather--don't notice me." She went on
abruptly with her inquiries. "Will you tell me the date of your father's
death?"

"The date was the thirtieth of September, nearly four years since."

She waited, after that reply.

Miss Jethro was silent.

"And this," Emily continued, "is the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred
and eighty-one. You can now judge for yourself. Did you know my father?"

Miss Jethro answered mechanically, using the same words.

"I did know your father."

Emily's feeling of distrust was not set at rest. "I never heard him
speak of you," she said.

In her younger days the teacher must have been a handsome woman.
Her grandly-formed features still suggested the idea of imperial
beauty--perhaps Jewish in its origin. When Emily said, "I never heard
him speak of you," the color flew into her pallid cheeks: her dim eyes
became alive again with a momentary light. She left her seat on the bed,
and, turning away, mastered the emotion that shook her.

"How hot the night is!" she said: and sighed, and resumed the subject
with a steady countenance. "I am not surprised that your father never
mentioned me--to _you_." She spoke quietly, but her face was paler than
ever. She sat down again on the bed. "Is there anything I can do for
you," she asked, "before I go away? Oh, I only mean some trifling
service that would lay you under no obligation, and would not oblige you
to keep up your acquaintance with me."

Her eyes--the dim black eyes that must once have been irresistibly
beautiful--looked at Emily so sadly that the generous girl reproached
herself for having doubted her father's friend. "Are you thinking of
_him_," she said gently, "when you ask if you can be of service to me?"

Miss Jethro made no direct reply. "You were fond of your father?" she
added, in a whisper. "You told your schoolfellow that your heart still
aches when you speak of him."

"I only told her the truth," Emily answered simply.

Miss Jethro shuddered--on that hot night!--shuddered as if a chill had
struck her.

Emily held out her hand; the kind feeling that had been roused in
her glittered prettily in her eyes. "I am afraid I have not done you
justice," she said. "Will you forgive me and shake hands?"

Miss Jethro rose, and drew back. "Look at the light!" she exclaimed.

The candle was all burned out. Emily still offered her ha