refrom a small morocco case, lined with red
velvet, and containing a daguerreotype much faded by age. She studied it
long and earnestly, but seemingly without any very satisfactory result.

"But how can I expect it?" murmured she. "So long ago as this was
taken! so sickly and unformed as he was then! But, oh! did they think I
could be blind to that face, and form, and expression! and there is none
other but he, now; the father is dead. Dead! Well, may God forgive him
all the evil of his life! I'm sure I do. But what will this turn out to
be, I wonder--a curse or a blessing? I must wait--it isn't for me to
speak; I must wait, and the end may be happy, after all."

CHAPTER X.

ONLY FOR TO-NIGHT!

On the evening of the 4th of July, Professor Valeyon and Cornelia got
into the wagon, and drove off, behind Dolly, to the boarding-house. It
was a warm, breathless night, and the stars looked brighter and more
numerous than usual.

The boarding-house was one of the largest buildings in town--an
accidental sort of structure, painted white, green-blinded, and
protected, from the two roads at whose intersection it stood, by a
white-washed board-fence, deficient in several places. The house
expanded into no less than four large bay-windows, affording an outlook
to three small rooms upon the ground-floor. The four or five other
larger apartments were forced to pass a gloomy existence behind a
loop-hole or two apiece, which could not have measured over three feet
in any direction.

The two largest rooms lay corner to corner, at right angles to one
another, and communicating by a passage-way through their point of
contact. Who the original genius was who discovered the admirable
facilities this else preposterous arrangement afforded for dances will
remain forever unknown; but the experiment once tried became an
institution as permanent as Abbie herself.

The small triangle of space between the two rooms, which to utilize had
theretofore been an unsolved problem, served admirably as a station for
the band; they could be heard in either apartment equally well. The
small boudoirs, nooks, and corners, which were scattered here and there
with lavish hand, did excellent duty as flirtation-boxes for those of
the dancers who needed that refreshment; the only drawback being that
one was never quite sure of privacy, on account of the complicated
system of doors and entries that prevailed.

But, in spite of all objections, a danc