ll be
easy enough for her to find engagements after this."

"Why shouldn't she go on?" his mother asked, with a suspicion which she
kept well out of sight.

"Well, as well as she could explain afterwards, the catastrophe took
her work out of the category of business and made her acceptance in it a
matter of sentiment."

"She explained it to you herself?"

"Yes, the general sympathy had penetrated to Mrs. Westangle, though I
don't say that she had been more than negatively indifferent to Miss
Shirley's claim on her before. As it was, she sent for me to her room
the next morning, and I found Miss Shirley alone there. She said Mrs.
Westangle would be down in a moment."

Now, indeed, Mrs. Verrian could not govern herself from saying, "I don't
like it, Philip."

"I knew you wouldn't. It was what I said to myself at the time. You
were so present with me that I seemed to have you there chaperoning the
interview." His mother shrugged, and he went on: "She said she wished
to tell me something first, and then she said, 'I want to do it while I
have the courage, if it's courage; perhaps it's just desperation. I am
Jerusha Brown.'"

His mother began, "But you said--" and then stopped herself.

"I know that I said she wasn't, but she explained, while I sat there
rather mum, that there was really another girl, and that the other
girl's name was really Jerusha Brown. She was the daughter of the
postmaster in the village where Miss Shirley was passing the summer.
In fact, Miss Shirley was boarding in the postmaster's family, and the
girls had become very friendly. They were reading my story together, and
talking about it, and trying to guess how it would come out, just as the
letter said, and they simultaneously hit upon the notion of writing to
me. It seemed to them that it would be a good joke--I'm not defending
it, mother, and I must say Miss Shirley didn't defend it, either--to
work upon my feelings in the way they tried, and they didn't realize
what they had done till Armiger's letter came. It almost drove them
wild, she said; but they had a lucid interval, and they took the letter
to the girl's father and told him what they had done. He was awfully
severe with them for their foolishness, and said they must write to
Armiger at once and confess the fact. Then they said they had written
already, and showed him the second letter, and explained they had
decided to let Miss Brawn write it in her person alone for the reason
s