e merits and demerits of a certain Lottie
Gardner, whose father had taken for a second wife Miss Laura Richards.

This Laura had died within a year of her marriage, but Lottie had
claimed relationship to the family just the same, grandmaing Mrs.
Richards and aunty-ing the sisters. John, however, was never called
uncle, except in fun. He was too near her age, the young lady frequently
declaring that she had half a mind to throw aside all family ties and
lay siege to the handsome young man, who really was very popular with
the fair sex. During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly
looking up and down the columns of an old _Herald_, which Dick, Eudora's
pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She
evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements,
until one struck her notice as being very singular. Holding it a little
more to the light she said: "Possibly this is the very person I
want--only the child might be an objection. Just listen," and Anna read
as follows:

"WANTED--By an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few
months old, a situation in a private family either as governess,
seamstress, or lady's maid. Country preferred. Address--"

Anna was about to say whom when a violent ringing of the bell announced
an arrival, and the next moment a tall young man, exceedingly
Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the
arms of his mother.

John, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light
figure, and kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an
expression, which told that, however indifferent he might be to others,
he was not so to Anna.

"You have not changed for the worse," he said. "You are scarcely thinner
than when I went away."

"And you are vastly improved," was Anna's answer.

His mother continued: "I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain
letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of
course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you
have done with a wife in Paris?"

"I should not have gone," John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over
his face.

It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic
on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence
ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was
not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a
poor, u