and then her mother, turning to
Margaret, said:

"You don't know what a pest and torment this child has always been to
me, and now when I am dying she deserts me for a low-lived fellow, old
enough to be her father."

Lenora's eyes flashed scornfully upon her mother, but she made no
answer, and as Mr. Elwyn was in haste to proceed on his journey,
Margaret arose to go. Lenora urged them to remain longer, but they
declined; and as she accompanied them to the door, Margaret said:

"Lenora, if your mother should die, and it would afford you any
satisfaction to have me come, I will do so, for I suppose you have no
near friends."

Lenora hesitated a moment, and then whispering to Margaret of the
relationship existing between herself and the old porter, she said,
"He is sick and poor, but he is my own father, and I love him dearly."

The tears came to Margaret's eyes, for she thought of her own father,
called home while his brown hair was scarcely touched with the frosts
of time. Wistfully Lenora watched the carriage as it disappeared from
sight, and then half-reluctantly entered the sick-room, where, for the
remainder of the afternoon, she endured her mother's reproaches for
having left her alone, and where once, when her patience was wholly
exhausted, she said:

"It served you right, for now you know how little Willie felt."

The next day Mrs. Hamilton was much worse, and Lenora, who had watched
and who understood her symptoms, felt confident that she would die,
and loudly her conscience upbraided her for her undutiful conduct. She
longed, too, to tell her that her father was still living, and one
evening when for an hour or two her mother seemed better, she arose,
and bending over her pillow, said, "Mother, did it ever occur to you
that father might not be dead?"

"Not be dead, Lenora! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Hamilton, starting
up from her pillow.

Cautiously then Lenora commenced her story by referring her mother
back to the old beggar, who some months before had been in the
kitchen. Then she spoke of the old porter, and the resemblance which
was said to exist between him and herself; and finally, as she saw her
mother could bear it, she told the whole story of her father's life.
Slowly the sick woman's eyes closed, and Lenora saw that her eyelids
were wet with, tears, but as she made no reply, Lenora ere long
whispered, "Would you like to see him, mother?"

"No, no; not now," was the answer.

For a tim