ll
find a home here with us, and it will be pleasant, after all, to see a
bright, girlish face in these dull old rooms, and hear the sound of
merry laughter."

This remark threw Hubert off his guard.

"That is spoken like my noble-hearted mother!" he cried,
enthusiastically. "I knew you could not be angry with me when you
understood it."

The girl stepped hesitatingly forward. From the first instant that she
beheld her standing on the threshold, she had conceived a great dislike
and fear of Hubert's haughty lady-mother. Even the conversation and
explanation which she had just listened to did not change her first
impression.

Thus it happened that Jessie Bain took up her abode in the magnificent
home of the Varricks.

But Hubert's mother made it the one object of her life to see that her
son and this attractive girl were never left alone together for a
moment.

He had seemed heart-broken over the loss of Gerelda Northrup up to the
time that Jessie had entered the house; now there was a perceptible
change in him.

He no longer brooded for hours over his cigars, pacing up and down under
the trees; now he would enter the library of an evening, or linger in
the drawing-room, especially if Jessie was there.

Had it not been for her son, and the terror from day to day in her heart
that Hubert was learning to care for the girl, proud Mrs. Varrick would
have liked Jessie Bain, she was so bright, so merry, so artless.

She lost no opportunity in impressing upon Jessie's mind, when she was
alone with the girl, that Hubert would never marry, eagerly noticing
what effect these words would have upon the girl.

"Wouldn't that be a pity, Mrs. Varrick?" she had answered once. "It
would be so cruel for him to stay single always."

"Not at all," returned Mrs. Varrick, sharply. "If a man does not get the
one that is intended for him, he should never marry any one else."

"And you think that he was intended for Miss Northrup?" questioned
Jessie.

"Decidedly; and for no one else."

"Then I wonder Heaven did not give her to him," said Jessie.

Mrs. Varrick looked at her keenly.

"A man never has but one love in a life-time," she said, impressively.

A fortnight had barely passed since Jessie had been under that roof, and
yet every one of the household noticed the difference in handsome Hubert
Varrick, and spoke about it. He was growing gayer and more debonair
than in the old days, when he was paying court to the beautif