ented her fine figure
and dignified manners; so when he that night asked the privilege of
walking home with Nellie, she raised no very strong opposition, but
yielded the point by merely saying something about "child's play." She,
however, kept near enough to them to hear every word of their
conversation; but they consoled themselves by thinking that the wide-open
ears could not penetrate the recesses of their well-filled letters which
they saw in the future.

In a few days Stanton and Raymond started for Kentucky. The evening before
they left was spent by Stanton in Nellie's company. Mrs. Fulton had
invited her to pass the night with her, as the Judge was absent from home.
About ten o'clock Mrs. Fulton very considerately grew sleepy, and retired
to her own room. But long after the town clock rang out the hour of
midnight, a light might have been seen gleaming from the windows of Judge
Fulton's sitting room, in which sat Robert and Nellie, repeating for the
hundredth time vows of eternal constancy.

The next morning when the last rumbling sound of the eastern train died
away in the streets of Geneva, Nellie Ashton sat weeping in her little
room at the seminary. She felt that now she was again alone in the wide,
wide world. Eight years before she had in the short space of three weeks
followed both father and mother to their last resting place, and upon
their newly-made graves she had prayed the orphan's prayer, that God would
protect one who was without father, mother, brother or sister in the
world.

The little property of her father was sold for the payment of his debts,
and Nellie, who was then but twelve years old, was obliged to labor both
early and late for her daily bread. Her father had lived near the city of
New York, and not long after his death she procured a situation in a
wealthy family of that city. She was called "the girl to do chores," which
meant that she was kept running from garret to cellar, from parlor to
kitchen, first here and then there, from earliest dawn to latest evening.
It was almost always eleven o'clock before she could steal away to her low
bed in the dark garret, and often, in the loneliness of the night, would
the desolate child pray that the God with whom her parents dwelt would
look in pity upon the helpless orphan.

Ere long her prayer was answered, for there came to the house where she
lived a gentleman and lady, who saw the "little kitchen girl." Something
there was in her sad b