as glad to have work to occupy me--and
that was all! Then things began to happen that puzzled me. The man
Hopkins declared he could not trust me because I had once been a thief,
and I wondered if he could speak truly. I resented the thought that I
may once have been a thief, although I wouldn't mind stealing, even now,
if I wanted anything and could take it."

"Oh, Eliza!" gasped Louise.

"It sounds wicked, doesn't it? But it is true. Nothing seems to
influence me so strongly as my own whims. I know what is good and what
is bad. I must have been taught these things once. But I am as likely to
do evil as good, and this recklessness has begun, in the last few days,
to worry me.

"Then I met a young man here--he says his name is Tom Gates--who called
me his dear Lucy, and said I used to love him. I laughed at him at
first, for it seemed very absurd and I do not want him to love me. But
then he proved to me there was some truth in his statement. He said his
Lucy had a scar on her left arm, and that made me afraid, because I had
discovered a scar on my own arm. I don't know how it got there. I don't
know anything about this old Lucy. And I'm afraid to find out. I'm
afraid of Lucy."

"Why, dear?"

"I cannot tell. I only know I have a horror of her, a sudden shrinking
whenever her name is mentioned. Who was she, do you suppose?"

"Shall I tell you?" asked Louise.

"No--no! Don't, I beg of you!" cried Eliza, starting up. "I--I can't
bear it! I don't want to know her."

The protest was passionate and sincere, and Louise marvelled at the
workings of this evidently unbalanced intellect.

"What would you like to do, dear?" she inquired.

"I'd like to remain Eliza Parsons--always. I'd like to get away from
_her_--far away from anyone who ever heard of that dreadful Lucy who
frightens me so. Will you help me to get away, to escape to some place
where no one will ever be able to trace me?"

"Do you think you would be happy then?"

"I am sure of it. The only thing that makes me unhappy now is the horror
that this past life will be thrust upon me. I must have had a past, of
course, or I shouldn't be a grown woman now. But I'm afraid of it; I
don't want to know anything about it! Will you help me to escape?"

She looked eagerly at Louise as she asked this pitiful question, and the
other girl replied, softly: "I will be your friend, Eliza. I'll think
all this over, and we will see what can be done. Be patient a little
whi