ations one afternoon,
when the parlor maid opened the door and said, as she handed her a card,
"The lady is in the drawing-room, ma'am."

The lady was Mrs. Ormonde.

"Is Mrs. Needham at home?"

"No, ma'am."

It was rather a trial, this, meeting with Ada, but Katherine could not
shirk it. She did not want to have any quarrel with the boys' mother, so
she ascended to the drawing-room.

There stood the pretty, smartly dressed little woman, all airy elegance,
but the usually smiling lips were compressed, and the smooth white brow
was wrinkled with a frown. She was examining a book of photographs--most
of them signed by the donors.

"Oh, Katherine! how do you do?" she said, sharply, and not in the least
abashed by any memory of their last meeting. "I am up in town for a few
days, and I couldn't leave without seeing you. You see I have too much
feeling to turn _my_ back on an old friend, however injured I may be by
circumstances over which you had no control. You are not looking well,
Katie; you are so white, and your eyes don't seem to be half open."

"I am quite well, I assure you," said Katherine, composedly, and
avoiding a half-offered kiss by drawing a chair forward for her
visitor.

"I wish I could say as much," returned Mrs. Ormonde, with a deep sigh,
throwing herself into it. "I am perfectly wretched; Ormonde is quite
intolerable at times since everything has collapsed. I am sure I often
wish you had never done anything for the boys or me, and then we should
never have fancied ourselves rich. Of course I don't blame you; you
meant well, but it is all very unfortunate."

"It is indeed; but is it possible that Colonel Ormonde is so unmanly as
to--"

"Unmanly?" interrupted his wife. "Manly, you mean. Of course he revenges
himself on me. Not always. He is all right sometimes; but if anything
goes wrong, then I suffer. Fortunately I was prudent, and made little
savings, with which I am--but"--interrupting herself--"that is not worth
speaking about."

"I am sorry you are unhappy, Ada," said Katherine, with her ready
sympathy.

"Oh, don't think I allow myself to be trodden on," cried Mrs. Ormonde,
her eyes suddenly lighting up. "It was a hard fight at first, but I saw
it was a struggle for life; and when we knew the worst, and Ormonde
raved and roared, I said I should leave him and take baby (I could, you
know, till he was seven years old), and that the servants would swear I
was in fear of my life; and I sh