test change in his haughty countenance. "Paula is Mrs. Fairchild's
daughter."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you," said he, and allowed the pretty brown-eyed miss to pass on,
which she did with lingering footsteps and many a backward glance of the
eye.

Halting at the door of that small cottage, Edward Sylvester reasoned
with himself.

"She may be just such another fresh-looking, round-faced,
mischievous-eyed school-girl. Spiritual children do not always make
earnest-souled women. Let me beware what hopes I build on a foundation
so unsubstantial." Yet when in a moment later the door opened and a
weazen-faced dapper, little woman appeared, all smiles and welcome, he
owned to a sensation of dismay that sufficiently convinced him what a
hold this hope of meeting with something exceptionally sweet and high,
had taken upon his hitherto careless and worldly spirit.

"Mr. Sylvester I am sure! I thought Ona would remember us after a while.
Come in sir, do, my sister will be home in a few moments." And with a
deprecatory flutter comical enough in a woman at least seventy odd years
old, she led her distinguished guest into a large unused room where in
spite of his remonstrances she at once proceeded to build a fire.

"It is a pleasure sir," she said to every utterance of regret on his
part at the trouble he was causing. And though her vocabulary was thus
made to appear somewhat small, her sincerity was undoubted. "We have
counted the days, Belinda and I, since we sent the last letter. It may
seem foolish to you, sir; but Paula is growing so fast and Belinda says
is so uncommon smart for her age that we did think that it was time Ona
knew just what a straight we were in. Do you want to see Paula?"

"Very much," he returned, shocked and embarrassed at the position in
which he found himself put by the reticence of his wife on the subject
of her relations. "They think I have come in reply to a letter," he
mused, "and I did not even know my wife had received one."

"You will be surprised," she exclaimed with a complacent nod as the fire
blazed up brightly; "every one is surprised who sees her for the first
time. Is my niece well?" And thus it was he learned the relation between
his wife of ten years and these simple inhabitants of the little cottage
in Grotewell.

He replied as in duty bound, and presently by the use of a few dexterous
questions succeeded in eliciting from this simple-minded old lady, the
few facts necessary to a pro