t be able to earn at something or other. On the
day after I formed this resolution I met, in my walks about the city
for the purpose, with the room where you found me, for which I paid
seventy-five cents a week. There I removed, and managed to live on
about one dollar and a quarter a week, which sum, or, at the worst,
seventy-five cents or a dollar a week, I have since earned at making
fine shirts for Mr. Berlaps at twenty-five cents each. I could have
done better than that, but every day I visit my father, and this
occupies from two to three hours."

"And how is your father?" asked Mrs. Gaston, wiping her tearful
eyes, as Eugenia paused, on ending her narrative.

"He seems calmer, and much more serious and apparently thoughtful
since he has been in this institution," Eugenia replied, with
something of cheerfulness in her tone. "He does not greet my coming,
as he did at first, with childish pleasure, but looks at me gravely,
yet with tenderness, when I enter; and, when I go away, he always
asks if I will 'come again to-morrow.' He did not do this at first."

"But have you not written to Mr. Perkins since your return?" asked
Mrs. Gaston.

Eugenia became instantly pale and agitated. But recovering herself
with an effort, she simply replied--

"How could I? To him I had, years before, been lost in the sea. I
could not exist in his mind, except as one in the world of spirits.
And how did when I came back, or how do I know now, that he has not
found another to fill that place in his heart which I once occupied?
On this subject I dared make no inquiry. And, even if this were not
the case, I am not as I was. I had fortune and social standing when
he wooed and won me. Now I am in comparative indigence, and branded
as an impostor in my native city. If none recognized and received us
in our own home, how could I expect him to do so? And to have been
spurned as a mere pretender by him would have broken my heart at
once."

Eugenia was greatly moved by this allusion to her former lover and
affianced husband. The subject was one upon which she had never
allowed herself to thinks except compulsorily, and but for a few
moments at a time. She could not bear it. After a silence of some
moments, Mrs. Gaston said--

"I have not met with or heard of Mr. Perkins for some years. He
remained in Troy about six months after you went away, and, during
that period, I saw him very frequently. Your loss seemed, for a
time, as if it would d