in his
wanderings he met with Adah Gordon, or her guardian, Mr. Monroe. Ask if
he was ever present at a marriage where this same Adah gave her heart to
one for whom she would then have lost her life, erring in that she loved
the gift more than the giver; but God punished idolatry, and He has
punished me, so sorely, oh so sorely; that sometimes my fainting soul
cries out, ''Tis more than I can bear,'"

Then followed more particulars so that there should be no doubt, and
then the half-crazed Adah took up the theme nearest to her heart, her
boy, her beautiful Willie. She could not take him with her. She knew not
where she was going, and Willie must not suffer. Would Anna take the
child?

"I do not ask that the new bride should ever call him hers," she wrote;
"I'd rather she would not. I ask that you should give him a mother's
care, and if his father will sometimes speak kindly to him for the sake
of the older time when he did love the mother, tell him--Willie's
father, I mean--tell him, oh I know not what to bid you tell him, except
that I forgive him, though at first it was so hard, and the words
refused to come; I trusted him so much, loved him so much, and until I
had it from his own lips, believed I was his wife. But that cured me;
that killed the love, if any still existed, and now, if I could, I would
not be his, unless it were for Willie's sake.

"And now farewell. God deal with you, dear Anna, as you deal with my
boy."

Calmly, steadily, Adah folded up the missive, and laying it with the
mourning envelope, busied herself next in making the necessary
preparations for her flight. Anna had been liberal with her in point of
wages, paying her every week, and paying more than at first agreed upon;
and as she had scarcely spent a penny during her three months' sojourn
at Terrace Hill, she had, including what Alice had given to her, nearly
forty dollars. She was trying so hard to make it a hundred, and so send
it to Hugh some day; but she needed it most herself, and she placed it
carefully in her little purse, sighing over the golden coin which Anna
had paid her last, little dreaming for what purpose it would be used.
She would not change her dress until Anna had retired, as that might
excite suspicion; so with the same rigid apathy of manner she sat down
by Willie's side and waited till Anna was heard moving in her room. The
lamp was burning dimly on the bureau, and so Anna failed to see the
frightful expression of