will has gone up, and we are
poorer than we were before by five thousand dollars, it is necessary
that I should bestir myself, you know." Maude could not tell why it
was that his words affected her unpleasantly, for she knew he was
not rich, and she felt that she should respect him more if he really
did bestir himself, but still she did not like his manner when
speaking of the will, and her heart was heavy all the day. He, on
the contrary, was in unusually good spirits. He was not tired of
Maude, but he was tired of the monotonous life at Laurel Hill, and
when his agent's summons came it found him ready to go. That for
which he had visited Laurel Hill had in reality been accomplished.
He had secured a wife, not Nellie, but Maude, and determining to do
everything honorable, he on the morning of his departure went to the
doctor, to whom he talked of Maude, expressing his wish to marry
her. Very coldly the doctor answered that "Maude could marry whom
she pleased. It was a maxim of his never to interfere with matches,"
and then, as if the subject were suggestive, he questioned the young
man to know if in his travels he had ever met the lady Maude
Glendower. J.C. had met her frequently at Saratoga.

"She was a splendid creature," he said, and he asked if the doctor
knew her.

"I saw her as a child of seventeen, and again as a woman of twenty-five.
She is forty now," was the doctor's answer, as he walked away,
wondering if the Maude Glendower of to-day were greatly changed from
the Maude of fifteen years ago.

To J.C.'s active mind a new idea was presented, and seeking out the
other Maude--his Maude--he told her of his suspicion. There was a
momentary pang, a thought of the willow-shaded grave where Kate and
Matty slept, and then Maude Remington calmly questioned J.C. of
Maude Glendower--who she was, and where did she live?

J.C. knew but little of the lady, but what little he knew he told.
She was of both English and Spanish descent. Her friends, he
believed, were nearly all dead, and she was alone in the world.
Though forty years of age, she was well preserved, and called a
wondrous beauty. She was a belle--a flirt--a spinster, and was
living at present in Troy.

"She'll never marry the doctor," said Maude, laughing, as she
thought of an elegant woman leaving the world of fashion to be
mistress of that house.

Still the idea followed her, and when at last J.C. had bidden her
adieu, and gone to his city home, she fr