may benefit her." Mr. Prince bent his keen, bright eyes upon
the young girl, and almost held his breath until she spoke again.

"Mother's coming up today or tomorrow," she said, looking up.

"Ah!" said Mr. Prince with a sweet and languid smile.

"Is Colonel Starbottle here too?" asked Carry, after a pause.

"Colonel Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother is again a widow."

"Dead!" repeated Carry.

"Yes," replied Mr. Prince. "Your stepmother has been singularly
unfortunate in surviving her affections."

Carry did not know what he meant, and looked so. Mr. Prince smiled
reassuringly.

Presently Carry began to whimper.

Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair.

"I am afraid," he said with a very peculiar light in his eye, and a
singular dropping of the corners of his mustache--"I am afraid you are
taking this too deeply. It will be some days before you are called upon
to make a decision. Let us talk of something else. I hope you caught no
cold last evening."

Carry's face shone out again in dimples.

"You must have thought us so queer! It was too bad to give you so much
trouble."

"None whatever, I assure you. My sense of propriety," he added demurely,
"which might have been outraged had I been called upon to help three
young ladies out of a schoolroom window at night, was deeply gratified
at being able to assist them in again." The doorbell rang loudly, and
Mr. Prince rose. "Take your own time, and think well before you make
your decision." But Carry's ear and attention were given to the sound of
voices in the hall. At the same moment, the door was thrown open, and a
servant announced, "Mrs. Tretherick and Mr. Robinson."

The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual indignant protest at
stopping at Genoa at all as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of the
town, and drove toward his hotel. He was wearied and cynical. A drive
of a dozen miles through unpicturesque outlying villages, past small
economic farmhouses, and hideous villas that violated his fastidious
taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious state of mind.
He would have even avoided his taciturn landlord as he drove up to the
door; but that functionary waylaid him on the steps. "There's a lady
in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye." Mr. Prince hurried upstairs, and
entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle flew toward him.

She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure was wasted
to half its size. The beautiful curves o