first people will
notice you just because you are here!"

Ida hastily walked to the window, standing with her back towards Ella,
who continued. "I think it's so funny. I've inquired and inquired
about Mr. Stuart, but no one knows him, and I've come to the
conclusion he was an impostor,--or a country schoolmaster, one or the
other."

There was a suppressed laugh behind the lace curtain where Ida stood,
and when Mary began to defend Mr. Stuart, she came out, and with great
apparent interest asked who he was, and where they had seen him.
Afterwards Mary remembered the mischief which shone in Ida's eyes as
they described Mr. Stuart, but she thought nothing of it then.

After asking Mary who paid for her music lessons,--how many new
dresses she'd got, and who cut them, Ella started to go, carelessly
saying as she left the room, that when Mary was able she should expect
to see her at Mrs. Campbell's.

In the mean time Henry had become so much engaged in a conversation
with Mr. Selden, that he forgot the lapse of time until he heard Ella
coming down the stairs. Then impelled by a mean curiosity to see what
she would do, he sat still, affecting not to notice her. She heard his
voice, and knew that he was still in the parlor. So for a long time
she lingered at the outer door, talking very loudly to Ida, and
finally, when there was no longer any excuse for tarrying, she
suddenly turned back, and shaking out her cloak and tippet, exclaimed,
"Why, where can my other glove be? I must have dropped it in the
parlor, for I do not remember of having had it up stairs!"

The parlor was of course entered and searched, and though no missing
glove was found, the company of Henry Lincoln was thus secured. Have
my readers never seen a Henry Lincoln, or an Ella Campbell?

CHAPTER XXIV.

A CHANGE OF OPINION.

"Oh, mother won't you take this pillow from my head, and put another
blanket on my feet, and fix the fire, and give me some water, or
something? Oh, dear, dear!--" groaned poor Rose Lincoln, as with
aching head and lungs, she did penance for her imprudence in crossing
the wet, slippery street in thin slippers and silken hose.

Mrs. Lincoln, who knew nothing of this exposure, loudly lamented the
extreme delicacy of her daughter's constitution, imputing it wholly to
Mount Holyoke discipline, and wishing, as she had often done before,
that "she'd been wise and kept her at home." Jenny would have wished
so, too, if by this