d,
after a short disappearance, returned with a marriage certificate and
the family records. "Here," she said, "is the date of my marriage, some
three years back, and the birth of our only child--just one year ago.
Baby was twelve months old yesterday.

"But now comes the disagreeable part of the story. My husband's mother,
whom I love and respect, for having, in the years since I first knew
her, been all that I could ask in a parent, had one painful episode in
her life. She was to have been married to a wealthy gentleman, whom she
loved devotedly; but, on the day appointed for the wedding, the expected
bridegroom met with an accident, which proved immediately fatal. After
he was buried, the object of his fondest affection found _what_ his loss
at such a moment had become to her. A dreadful truth was revealed to
her, which became immediately known to those most interested in her
welfare. Furious with rage, and forgetting that his child needed now his
tenderest care, the outraged father drove her from his door, with the
command never to enter it. It was then that a former lover, who had
worshipped her from afar in the days of her prosperity, came forward and
offered her his protection and an honorable name, that had never been
sullied by disgrace.

"In her distressed circumstances, she accepted him thankfully. They were
married immediately, and not long after this child of the former lover
was born. It was the one false step of a young, inexperienced girl, and
bitterly repented and atoned for in after life. The story is well known
where these facts occurred, as there was not the least attempt at
concealment."

"Then you admit, Madam, that your relative _did_ commit a grievous wrong
at one portion of her life," said Miss Pryor, with a glance of severe
virtue.

"But she repented, Betsey, and was forgiven, we trust," said Mrs. Wynn,
gently, thinking of one at home who had wrung her aged heart by a
similar misstep.

"That is not all I have to say upon the subject, either," said Mrs.
Garnet, spiritedly. "Since the minister's dashing lady has commenced
this cowardly attack upon one I love, I shall not hesitate to speak the
entire truth. This widow, who was never a wife until she lately married
her present husband, and who, I regret to say, has thereby imposed upon
a very worthy man, has a grown daughter of unsound mind, who is bound
out to a family, where it is well known she has not been treated any too
kindly. The hea