n glad to inflict if it had had the
chance. The steps grown fainter, went about the next room, and Elizabeth
went on with her reading only half attentively, watching for the
inevitable coming back. "But then," resumed Mrs. Eveleigh, returning to
her subject as soon as she had opened the door wide enough to admit her
voice, "one must see a little of the world sometimes. I'm coming in to
warm my feet by your fire, shan't I? mine is low. I declare, it's hard
that Nancy should be so partial to you. I can get scarcely any
attention, though, to be sure, poor thing, it's well to have it from
somebody, even if it is from dependents. And you don't get any too much
from the quarter where you've a right to it."

Elizabeth, knowing it would be useless to attempt going on with her
reading, had laid aside her book on Mrs. Eveleigh's entrance, and now
she looked up from the sewing toward which she had reached out her hand,
and said:--

"You know as well as I do that it is exactly as I want it. Mr. Archdale
considers my wishes, and as to having a right, you know, Cousin
Patience, that that is what is being disproved now. Haven't I declared
that the ceremony was nothing at all?"

"Oh, certainly you have, but you'll find out how little good that will
do. I have not an idea that you'll ever have a chance to say 'Yes' to
that splendid Edmonson. You'll find it out soon enough, poor child."

Elizabeth flushed, then turned pale.

"Have you heard anything?" she asked.

"Not yet; not since that Mr. Harwin turned out a minister, just as I
thought he would, and your case went to the court to be decided. You'll
have the first news, I suppose, but I don't doubt what it will be."

"Neither do I," returned the girl, resolutely.

"We shall see," said Mrs. Eveleigh. "Do you know," she added, "that Mr.
Edmonson came yesterday when you were out?"

"Yes."

Then there fell between the pair as long an interval of silence as Mrs.
Eveleigh ever permitted where she was concerned. She broke it by asking,
energetically:--

"Elizabeth, if you really believed that you were not Mr. Archdale's
wife, why, in the name of wonder, did you go and put your whole fortune
into his business? And why did your father let you?"

"My father had no legal right to interfere," said the girl, ignoring the
first question, "and he did not choose to strain his authority. When was
he ever unkind to me?"

"I think he was then, decidedly." And the speaker nodded her head w