tively, ready to anticipate her slightest wish. But
looking around, she missed the sweet, wistful face that she had seen in
her room the night before.

"Are all the family assembled here?" she inquired, wondering if it had
not been a dream she had had of a sweet white face and a pair of sad
gray eyes.

"All except Patience," replied Mrs. Pendleton, with a frown. "She's
rather queer, and prefers not to join us at table or in the
drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading
the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious
papers. We don't see her for weeks at a time, and actually forget she
lives in this house. She's quite a religious crank, and you won't see
much of her."

Miss Rogers saw the girls laugh and titter at their mother's remarks;
and from that moment they lowered in her estimation, while sweet
Patience was exalted.

CHAPTER XVII.

The next few days that passed were like a dream to Miss Rogers. Every
one was so kind and considerate it seemed that she was living in another
world.

Mrs. Pendleton had cautioned the girls against mentioning the fact of
Sally's coming marriage, explaining that she might change her mind about
leaving her fortune to the family if she knew there was a prospect of
wealth for them from any other source.

"But it would not be fair to let her make sister Sally her heiress,"
said Louisa, bitterly. "She ought not to get both fortunes. She will
come into a magnificent fortune through marrying Jay Gardiner. Why
should you want her to have Miss Rogers' money, too? You ought to
influence that eccentric old lady to leave her fortune to _me_."

"Hush, my dear. Miss Rogers might hear you," warned her mother.

But the warning had come too late. In coming down the corridor to join
the family in the general sitting-room, as they had always insisted on
her doing, she had overheard Miss Louisa's last remark.

She stopped short, the happy light dying from her eyes, and the color
leaving her cheeks.

"Great Heaven! have I been deceived, after all? Was the kindness of the
Pendleton girls and their parents only assumed? Was there a monetary
reason back of it all?" she mused.

A great pain shot through her heart; a wave of intense bitterness filled
her soul.

"I will test these girls," muttered Miss Rogers, setting her lips
together; "and that, too, before another hour passes over my head."

After a few moments more of deliberation, s