f such a place. After a prolonged search on the map the agent
discovered it to be a little inland station not far from Baltimore.

"We can sell you a ticket for Baltimore," he said, "and there you can
purchase a ticket for the other road."

And once again poor little Daisy was whirling rapidly toward the scene
of her first great sorrow.

Time seemed to slip by her unheeded during all that long, tedious
journey of two nights and a day.

"Are you going to Baltimore?" asked a gentle-faced lady, who was
strangely attracted to the beautiful, sorrowful young girl, in which
all hope, life, and sunshine seemed dead.

"Yes, madame," she made answer, "I change cars there; I am going
further."

The lady was struck by the peculiar mournful cadence of the young
voice.

"I beg your pardon for my seeming rudeness," she said, looking long
and earnestly at the fair young face; "but you remind me so strangely
of a young school-mate of my youth; you are strangely like what she
was then. We both attended Madame Whitney's seminary. Perhaps you have
heard of the institution; it is a very old and justly famous school."
She wondered at the beautiful flush that stole into the girl's
flower-like face--like the soft, faint tinting of a sea-shell. "She
married a wealthy planter," pursued the lady, reflectively; "but she
did not live long to enjoy her happy home. One short year after she
married Evalia Hurlhurst died." The lady never forgot the strange
glance that passed over the girl's face, or the wonderful light that
seemed to break over it. "Why," exclaimed the lady, as if a sudden
thought occurred to her, "when you bought your ticket I heard you
mention Allendale. That was the home of the Hurlhursts. Is it possible
you know them? Mr. Hurlhurst is a widower--something of a recluse, and
an invalid, I have heard; he has a daughter called Pluma."

"Yes, madame," Daisy made answer, "I have met Miss Hurlhurst, but not
her father."

How bitterly this stranger's words seemed to mock her! Did she know
Pluma Hurlhurst, the proud, haughty heiress who had stolen her young
husband's love from her?--the dark, sparkling, willful beauty who had
crossed her innocent young life so strangely--whom she had seen
bending over _her_ husband in the pitying moonlight almost caressing
him? She thought she would cry out with the bitterness of the thought.
How strange it was! The name, Evalia Hurlhurst, seemed to fall upon
her ears like the softest, sweetest