er and closer the burning forehead
was pressed against the window pane, and hope beat high in Louis'
heart, when suddenly she turned aside--her foot rested on the
withered violets which grew outside the walk, and her hand groped in
the empty air.

"She's blind--she's blind," said Louis, and with a moaning cry he
laid his head upon the broad arm of his chair, sobbing most
bitterly.

Meantime below there was a strange interview between the new mother
and her children, Maude Glendower clasping her namesake in her arms
and weeping over her as she had never wept before but once, and that
when the moonlight shone upon her sitting by a distant grave.
Pushing back the clustering curls, she kissed the open brow and
looked into the soft black eyes with a burning gaze which penetrated
the shadowy darkness and brought a flush to the cheek of the young
girl.

"Maude Remington! Maude Remington!" she said, dwelling long upon the
latter name, "the sight of you affects me painfully; you are so like
one I have lost. I shall love you, Maude Remington, for the sake of
the dead, and you, too, must love me, and call me mother--will you?"
and her lips again touched those of the astonished maiden.

Though fading fast, the light was not yet quenched in Maude's eyes,
and very wistfully she scanned the face of the speaker, while her
hands moved caressingly over each feature, as she said, "I will love
you, beautiful lady, though you can never be to me what my gentle
mother was."

At the sound of that voice Maude Glendower started suddenly, and
turning aside, so her words could not be heard, she murmured sadly,
"Both father and child prefer her to me." Then, recollecting
herself, she offered her hand to the wondering Nellie, saying, "Your
Sister's misfortune must be my excuse for devoting so much time to
her, when you, as my eldest daughter, were entitled to my first
attention."

Her stepmother's evident preference for Maude had greatly offended
the selfish Nellie, who coldly answered, "Don't trouble yourself,
madam. It's not of the least consequence. But where is my father? He
will welcome me, I am sure."

The feeling too often existing between stepmothers and stepdaughters
had sprung into life, and henceforth the intercourse of Maude
Glendower and Nellie Kennedy would be marked with studied
politeness, and nothing more. But the former did not care. So long
as her eye could feast itself upon the face and form of Maude
Remington she was