rest, this will never do," Mrs. Stewart at last exclaimed,
as she lifted her face and smiled tenderly upon Edith; "we must at
least compose ourselves long enough to make our adieus to our hostess;
then I am going to take you home with me, to have all the story of our
tangled past unraveled and explained. Come, let us sit down for a few
moments, until we get rid of the traces of our tears, and you shall
tell me how you happened to be in Boston under the name of Edith
Allen."

She drew her toward a couch as she spoke, and there Edith related how
she had happened to meet the Goddard's on the train, between New York
and Boston, and was engaged to act as madam's companion, and how also
the mistake regarding her name had occurred.

"And were you happy with them, my dear?" inquired Mrs. Stewart,
regarding her curiously.

The fair girl flushed.

"Indeed I was not," she replied, "I think they were the strangest
people I ever met."

Almost as she spoke the door of the reception-room opened, and Gerald
Goddard himself appeared upon the threshold.

He was pale to ghastliness, and looked years older than when Edith had
seen him in the drawing-room a few minutes previous.

"Pardon me this intrusion, Miss--Edith," he began, shrinkingly, while
he searched both faces before him with despairing eyes; "but I am
about to leave, and I wished to give you this note before I went. If,
after reading it, you should care to communicate with me, you can
address me at the Murry Hill Hotel."

He laid the missive upon a table near the door, then, with a bow,
withdrew, leaving the mother and daughter alone again.

"That was Mr. Goddard," Edith explained to her companion, as she arose
to take the letter; but without a suspicion that the two had ever met
before, or that the man was her own father--the "monster" who had so
wronged her beautiful mother.

Mrs. Stewart made no reply to the remark; and Edith, breaking the seal
of the envelope in her hands, drew forth several closely-written
pages.

"Why!" she exclaimed, in a startled tone, "this is Mrs. Goddard's
handwriting!"

She hastily unfolded the sheets and ran her eye rapidly down the first
page, when a low cry broke from her lips, and, throwing herself upon
her knees before her mother, she buried her face in her lap,
murmuring joyfully:

"Saved! saved!"

"Darling, tell me!--what is this that excites you so?" Mrs. Stewart
pleaded, as she bent over her and softly kissed her flushed