ven heard
a report. Without friends, and without prospects, Roderick Westerfield's
daughter was, in the saddest sense of the word, alone in the world.

The hands of the ugly old clock in the school-room were approaching
the time when the studies of the morning would come to an end. Wearily
waiting for their release, the scholars saw an event happen which was a
novelty in their domestic experience. The maid-of-all-work audaciously
put her head in at the door, and interrupted Miss Wigger conducting the
education of the first-class.

"If you please, miss, there's a gentleman--"

Having uttered these introductory words, she was reduced to silence by
the tremendous voice of her mistress.

"Haven't I forbidden you to come here in school hours? Go away
directly!"

Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual scolding,
the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of her tongue.

"There's a gentleman in the drawing-room," she persisted. Miss Wigger
tried to interrupt her again. "And here's his card!" she shouted, in a
voice that was the louder of the two.

Being a mortal creature, the schoolmistress was accessible to the
promptings of curiosity. She snatched the card out of the girl's hand.

_Mr. Herbert Linley, Mount Morven, Perthshire._ "I don't know this
person," Miss Wigger declared. "You wretch, have you let a thief into
the house?"

"A gentleman, if ever I see one yet," the servant asserted.

"Hold your tongue! Did he ask for me? Do you hear?"

"You told me to hold my tongue. No; he didn't ask for you."

"Then who did he want to see?"

"It's on his card."

Miss Wigger referred to the card again, and discovered (faintly traced
in pencil) these words: "To see Miss S.W."

The schoolmistress instantly looked at Miss Westerfield. Miss
Westerfield rose from her place at the head of her class.

The pupils, astonished at this daring act, all looked at the
teacher--their natural enemy, appointed to supply them with undesired
information derived from hated books. They saw one of Mother Nature's
favorite daughters; designed to be the darling of her family, and
the conqueror of hearts among men of all tastes and ages. But Sydney
Westerfield had lived for six weary years in the place of earthly
torment, kept by Miss Wigger under the name of a school. Every budding
beauty, except the unassailable beauty of her eyes and her hair, had
been nipped under the frosty superintendence of her mater