find a person willing to come to
her home who could do just such fancy-work, and decorate her _boudoir_.
Now, I mean to go there in disguise, show her a sample of my work, and
say that I gave many lessons to Gerelda Northrup, and she will be only
too glad to have me come to her home at any price. Then I can see for
myself just how much my lover is grieving over my loss. He may be pining
away--ay, be at the very gates of death, probably. In that case I shall
reveal my identity at once.

"Oh, Miss Gerelda, you could never go through all that! _You_ toil, even
for a day, for any one? Oh! pray abandon such a mad idea. Believe me, my
dear, such an idea is not practicable."

But all her persuasion could not influence the girl to abandon her plan.

A few days later a tall, slender woman robed in the severest black, with
a cap on her head and blue glasses covering her eyes, walked slowly up
the broad, graveled path that led to the Varrick mansion.

Mrs. Varrick was seated on the porch. She looked highly displeased when
the servant approached her, announcing that this person--indicating
Gerelda--desired particularly to speak with her a few moments.

"If you are a peddler or in search of work, you should go round to the
servants' door," she said, brusquely.

Gerelda never knew until then what a very cross mother-in-law she had
escaped.

"Step around there, and I will see you later," said Mrs. Varrick.

This Gerelda was forced to do. She waited in the servants' hall an hour
or more before Mrs. Varrick remembered her and came to see what she
wanted. When she saw the samples of fancy-work her eyes lighted up.

"They are very beautiful," she said, "but I am not in need of anything
of the kind just now. If you call round here a few months later, I might
find use for your services."

Gerelda had been so confident of getting an opportunity to stay beneath
that roof, that the shock of these words nearly made her cry out and
betray herself.

"Is there no young lady in the house to whom I could teach this art?"
she asked.

As she spoke these words she heard a light foot-fall on the marble
floor, and the soft _frou frou_ of rustling skirts behind her, and she
turned her head quickly.

There, standing in the door-way, she beheld Jessie Bain.

CHAPTER X.

LIFE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE A ROSE WITHOUT PERFUME.

For an instant these two young girls who were to be such bitter rivals
for one man's love looked at each other