wants me to go to New York with him Monday. I've
decided to go."

"Oh, Jennie!" exclaimed her mother. "Surely not! You wouldn't do
anything like that after all that's happened. Think of your
father."

"I've thought it all out," went on Jennie, firmly. "It's really for
the best. He's a good man. I know he is. He has lots of money. He
wants me to go with him, and I'd better go. He will take a new house
for us when we come back and help us to get along. No one will ever
have me as a wife--you know that. It might as well be this way.
He loves me. And I love him. Why shouldn't I go?"

"Does he know about Vesta?" asked her mother cautiously.

"No," said Jennie guiltily. "I thought I'd better not tell him
about her. She oughtn't to be brought into it if I can help it."

"I'm afraid you're storing up trouble for yourself, Jennie," said
her mother. "Don't you think he is sure to find it out some time?"

"I thought maybe that she could be kept here," suggested Jennie,
"until she's old enough to go to school. Then maybe I could send her
somewhere."

"She might," assented her mother; "but don't you think it would be
better to tell him now? He won't think any the worse of you."

"It isn't that. It's her," said Jennie passionately. "I don't want
her to be brought into it."

Her mother shook her head. "Where did you meet him?" she
inquired.

"At Mrs. Bracebridge's."

"How long ago?"

"Oh, it's been almost two months now."

"And you never said anything about him," protested Mrs. Gerhardt
reproachfully.

"I didn't know that he cared for me this way," said Jennie
defensively.

"Why didn't you wait and let him come out here first?" asked her
mother. "It will make things so much easier. You can't go and not have
your father find out."

"I thought I'd say I was going with Mrs. Bracebridge. Papa can't
object to my going with her."

"No," agreed her mother thoughtfully.

The two looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Gerhardt, with her
imaginative nature, endeavored to formulate some picture of this new
and wonderful personality that had come into Jennie's life. He was
wealthy; he wanted to take Jennie; he wanted to give them a good home.
What a story!

"And he gave me this," put in Jennie, who, with some instinctive
psychic faculty, had been following her mother's mood. She opened her
dress at the neck, and took out the two hundred and fifty dollars; she
placed the money in her mother's hands.

The latter stared