s
with the Hethertons, signed for her to join her.

The blonde was now coming down the aisle with Mr. Leighton, and
joined the group just as Anna was introduced as "My niece, Miss Anna
Ruthven."

"Oh, you are the Anna of whom I have heard so much from Ada Fuller.
You were at school together in Troy," Miss Fanny said, her searching
eyes taking in every point as if she were deciding how far her new
acquaintance was entitled to the praise she had heard bestowed upon
her.

"I know Miss Fuller--yes;" and Anna bowed haughtily, turning next to
the blonde, Miss Lucy Harcourt, who was telling Colonel Hetherton how
she had met Mr. Leighton first among the Alps, and afterwards traveled
with him until the party returned to Paris, where he left them for
America.

"I was never so surprised in my life as I was to find him here. Why,
it actually took my breath for a moment," she went on, "and I greatly
fear that, instead of listening to his sermon, I have been roaming
amid that Alpine scenery and basking again in the soft moonlight of
Venice. I heard you singing, though," she said, when Anna was
presented to her, "and it helped to keep up the illusion--it was so
like the music heard from a gondola that night, when Mr. Leighton and
myself made a voyage through the streets of Venice. Oh, it was so
beautiful," and the blue eyes turned to Mr. Leighton for confirmation
of what the lips had uttered.

"Which was beautiful?--Miss Ruthven's singing or that moonlight night
in Venice?" young Bellamy asked, smiling down upon the little lady who
still held Anna's hand, and who laughingly replied:

"Both, of course, though the singing is just now freshest in my
memory. I like it so much. You must have had splendid teachers," and
she turned again to Anna, whose face was suffused with blushes as she
met the rector's eyes, for to his suggestions and criticisms and
teachings she owed much of that cultivation which had so pleased and
surprised the stranger.

"Oh, yes, I see it was Arthur. He tried to train me once, and told me
I had a squeak in my voice. Don't you remember?--those frightfully
rainy days in Rome?" Miss Harcourt said, the Arthur dropping from her
lips as readily as if they had always been accustomed to speak it.

She was a talkative, coquettish little lady, but there was something
about her so genuine and cordial, that Anna felt the ice thawing
around her heart, and even returned the pressure of the snowy fingers
which had twin