the attention of the
two dames.

Walking over the dried-up moonlit grass to our cottage, I threatened to
go back and give them a piece of my mind, but my wife said:

"Maybe I did need a slight reminder. I haven't paid much attention to
Mary's goings-on this summer. I must talk to Mr. Flaker the first
chance."

The opportunity came before the Evening was over, while I was in my pet
hammock round the corner of the cottage, and Belle in a rocking-chair at
the front.

"Good-evening, Mr. Flaker," I heard her say. "I don't think you've ever
seen the inside of our cottage. Won't you step in for a moment, now that
it is lighted up?"

The moment satisfied him, for he speedily returned to the veranda.

"I never saw such a beautiful swimmer as Miss Gemmell," said the mannish
voice, and Belle replied impressively:

"I believe you are not aware, Mr. Flaker, that the young lady you call
Miss Gemmell is not my own daughter."

"Your stepchild is she, or your husband's niece?"

"Neither. She is no relation at all--just a poor girl whom I have taken
up to educate. She can barely read or write. I felt that I ought to tell
you this because you have been paying her a good deal of attention."

"Indeed, Mrs. Gemmell, I admire Miss Gemmell very much; but I assure
you I never regarded her as anything else than a pleasant summer
acquaintance."

And Mary was dropped forthwith.

CHAPTER V.

THE winter of 1892-93 Mary spent at home with us. Her first expressed
wish, when the family returned from Interlaken, was to be confirmed, and
the Rev. Mr. Armstrong of the church we do not attend was duly notified.

"He says I must be christened first," said Mary. "Would you mind if he
called me 'Mary Gemmell'? There aint any name that I've a right to, and
I don't want to be called 'Mason,' because that's the name of the woman
that abused me when I was little. I'd rather have yours."

She was such a pathetic-looking young person, standing there before
Belle in her fresh and innocent loveliness, that my wife had not the
heart to refuse her anything.

When I came home that same evening there was a _tableau vivant_ in front
of the parlor fire. Dressed in white, Mary sat on a low stool at the
feet of the Rev. Walter Armstrong, her hands clasped in her lap, gazing
up into the clean-shaven clerical face, with that which passed for her
soul in her eyes. In spite of his stiff round collar and long black coat
the rector is a young man, and