n"
gentlemen.

Continuing, Mrs. Marston said: "It will never do for Stella to associate
with such an indecent man, who preaches French ideas from the pulpit.
Why, Bertha, it will never do. You had better let Stella come and stay
with me till she is married. She is a great favorite with the young
people in Roseland and there are some splendid catches for her there."

"Well," said Bertha, "I have no control over her; she can go to Roseland
if she wishes."

"But," said Mrs. Marston, "it becomes your duty as her mother to show
her the danger of speaking to a man like Penloe. You should keep her
away from his influence and do what you can to encourage her to marry
well."

Bertha looked her sister Helen in the face and said: "Helen, I have
decided to let Stella choose her own path in life and select her own
mate. If she asks my advice I will give it. She has her own life to
lead, and it does not become me to mark it out for her. She must hew the
way. And, supposing I wanted to, do you think it would do any good?
Helen, you know better than that. Could you keep your son from getting
that waiter girl in trouble? And now the poor girl is homeless and
penniless, with a baby, in a hospital, without a friend to keep her,
while your son is walking the streets of Paris as a well dressed
gentleman." Here Mrs. Marston interrupted her and said: "Oh, my poor
boy! It makes my blood boil when I think how that nasty, dirty hussy got
my poor Henry into disgrace. Don't mention her, Bertha. It would have
served her right to have died before the child was born."

Bertha said: "Helen, you can invite Stella to Roseland, and if she
wishes to go it is just the same to me as if she stayed here, for I will
not be in Stella's way of exercising her freedom."

So when Stella came into the house her aunt said: "Stella, I do wish you
would come to Roseland and stay with me."

"Thank you, Aunt, you are very kind, but I have certain subjects I wish
to study and I want to be where I can be quiet; but, Aunt, dear, I will
return with you and stay a week, if you will bring me back home at the
end of that time."

"All right, Stella, get yourself ready and we will leave right away."

CHAPTER XIII.

RETURN OF BEN WEST.

About two months before Ben West returned to Orangeville, Mr. Hammond
took a letter out of the Orangeville post-office, which read as follows:

"_Kohn & Kohn, Bankers and Brokers, Stillman Block._