d parted.

"I am going to my uncle's house," she said; "my mother's brother. Hugh
Denover is a rich merchant, and will receive us, I know. Keep my story
secret, and come and see me next time you visit New York. Here is my
uncle's address; give me yours, and if ever it is in my power, I will
not forget how nobly you have acted and how inadequately you have been
repaid."

They shook hands and parted.

Mr. Parmalee went "down East," not at all satisfied with his little
English speculation. He had lost a handsome reward and a handsomer
wife. He dared hardly think to himself that Sybilla had done the
horrid deed, and he had never breathed his suspicion to Harriet.

"Let her think it's the baronet, if she's a mind to. I ain't a-going
to do him a good turn. But I know better."

Harriet and her mother sought out Mr. Denover. He lived in a stately
up-town mansion, with his wife and one son, and received both poor
waifs with open arms. His lost sister had been his boyhood's pet; he
had nothing for her now but pity and forgiveness, when she looked at
him with death in her face.

"My poor Maria, don't talk of the wretched past. I love my only sister
in spite of all, and neither she nor her child shall want a home while
I have one."

Harriet told her story very briefly. Her father had been dead for two
years. She had married; she had not lived happily with her husband,
and they had parted. She had come to Uncle Hugh; she knew he would
give his sister's daughter a home.

She told her story with dry eyes and unfaltering voice; but Mr.
Denover, looking in that pale, rigid young face, read more of her
despair than she dreamed.

"Her husband has been some English grandee, like Captain Hunsden, I
dare say," he thought, "proud as Lucifer, and when he discovered that
about her mother, despised and ill-treated her."

The penitent wife of Captain Hunsden did not long survive to enjoy her
new home. Two weeks after their arrival she lay upon her death-bed.
Nothing could save her. She had been doomed for months--life gave way
when the excitement that had buoyed her up was gone.

By night and day Harriet watched by her bedside, and the repentant
Magdalen's last hours were the most blessed she had ever known.

"I do not deserve to die like this," she said. "Oh, my darling, your
love makes my death-bed very sweet!"

They laid her in Greenwood, and once more Harriet's desolation seemed
renewed.

"I am doomed to los