t the ring upon Maude's finger, and taking it
in her hand, she admired its chaste beauty, and was calculating its
probable cost, when glancing at the inside she started suddenly,
exclaiming, "'Cousin Maude'--that is my name--the one by which he
always called me. Has it been given to you, too?" and as the throng
of memories that name awakened came rushing over her, the impulsive
woman folded the blind girl to her bosom, saying to her, "My child,
my, child, you should have been!"

"I do not understand you," said Maude, and Mrs. Kennedy replied, "It
is not meet that we should part ere I tell you who and what I am. Is
the name of Maude Glendower strange to you? Did you never hear it in
your Vernon home?"

"It seemed familiar to me when J.C. De Vere first told me of you,"
answered Maude, "but I cannot recall any particular time when I
heard it spoken. Did you know my mother?"

"Yes, father and mother both, and loved them too. Listen to me,
Maude, while I tell you of the past. Though it seems so long ago, I
was a schoolgirl once, and nightly in my arms there slept a
fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden, four years my junior, over whom I
exercised an elder sister's care. She loved me, this little blue-eyed
girl, and when your brother first spoke to me I seemed again to
hear her voice whispering in my ear, 'I love you, beautiful Maude.'"

"It was mother--it was mother!" and Maude Remington drew nearer to
the excited woman, who answered:

"Yes, it was your mother, then little Matty Reed; we were at school
together in New Haven, and she was my roommate. We were not at all
alike, for I was wholly selfish, while she found her greatest
pleasure in ministering to others' happiness; but she crossed my
path at last, and then I thought I hated her."

"Not my mother, lady. You could not hate my mother!" and the blind
eyes flashed as if they would tear away the veil of darkness in
which they were enshrouded, and gaze upon a woman who could hate
sweet Matty Remington.

"Hush, child! don't look so fiercely at me," said Maude Glendower.
"Upon your mother's grave I have wept that sin away, and I know I am
forgiven as well as if her own soft voice had told me so. I loved
your father, Maude, and this was my great error. He was a distant
relative of your mother, whom he always called his cousin. He
visited her often, for he was a college student, and ere I was aware
of it, I loved him, oh, so madly, vainly fancying my affection was
returned.