f distrust, and the dread of desertion, were busy at
this woman's heart?

He placed a chair for her, and seating himself by her side asked if she
felt tired. Every attention that she could wish for from the man whom
she loved, offered with every appearance of sincerity on the surface!
She met him halfway, and answered as if her mind was quite at ease.

"No, dear, I'm not tired--but I'm glad to get back."

"Did you find your old landlady still alive?"

"Yes. But oh, so altered, poor thing! The struggle for life must have
been a hard one, since I last saw her."

"She didn't recognize you, of course?"

"Oh! no. She looked at me and my dress in great surprise and said her
lodgings were hardly fit for a young lady like me. It was too sad. I
said I had known her lodgings well, many years ago--and, with that to
prepare her, I told her who I was. Ah, it was a melancholy meeting for
both of us. She burst out crying when I kissed her; and I had to tell
her that my mother was dead, and my brother lost to me in spite of every
effort to find him. I asked to go into the kitchen, thinking the change
would be a relief to both of us. The kitchen used to be a paradise to me
in those old days; it was so warm to a half-starved child--and I always
got something to eat when I was there. You have no idea, Herbert, how
poor and how empty the place looked to me now. I was glad to get out of
it, and go upstairs. There was a lumber-room at the top of the house;
I used to play in it, all by myself. More changes met me the moment I
opened the door."

"Changes for the better?"

"My dear, it couldn't have changed for the worse! My dirty old play-room
was cleaned and repaired; the lumber taken away, and a nice little bed
in one corner. Some clerk in the City had taken the room--I shouldn't
have known it again. But there was another surprise waiting for me; a
happy surprise this time. In cleaning out the garret, what do you think
the landlady found? Try to guess."

Anything to please her! Anything to make her think that he was as fond
of her as ever! "Was it something you had left behind you," he said, "at
the time when you lodged there."

"Yes! you are right at the first guess--a little memorial of my father.
Only some torn crumpled leaves from a book of children's songs that he
used to teach me to sing; and a small packet of his letters, which my
mother may have thrown aside and forgotten. See! I have brought them
back with me; I mean to