made no reply to it.

Presently, however, she asked:

"When are you going to attend to that matter of business for me? I do not
think it ought to be delayed any longer."

"Blast it! I am tired of business," responded her dutiful nephew
impatiently, adding: "I suppose the sooner I go, though, the quicker it
will be over."

"Yes, I want everything fixed secure before my marriage, for I intend
to manage my own private affairs afterward, the same as before," his
companion returned.

Louis laughed with some amusement.

"You ought to have been a man, Aunt Marg; your spirit is altogether too
self-reliant and independent for a woman," he said.

"I know it; but being a woman, I must try to make the best of the
situation in the future, as I have done all my life," she returned,
with a self-conscious smile.

"Well, I will look after that matter right away--get your instructions
ready and I will be off within an hour or two," said the young man, as
he rose and went out, while Mrs. Montague proceeded directly to her own
room.

CHAPTER III.

MONA FORESTER.

While Louis Hamblin and Mrs. Montague were engaged in the discussion
mentioned in the preceding chapter, below stairs Mona sat in the
sewing-room reading the paper of the previous evening. She was waiting
for Mrs. Montague to come up to give her some directions about a dress
which she was repairing before she could go on with it.

She had read the general news and was leisurely scanning the
advertisement columns, as people often do without any special object
in view, when her eye fell upon these lines:

WANTED--INFORMATION REGARDING A PERSON named Mona Forester, or her heirs,
if any there be. Knowledge to her or their advantage is in the possession
of CORBIN & RUSSEL, No.--Broadway, N. Y.

Mona lost all her color as she read this.

"Can it be possible that there is any connection between this Mona
Forester and my history?" she murmured thoughtfully; "Mona is a very
uncommon name--it cannot be that my mother's surname was Forester, since
she was Uncle Walter's sister. Perhaps this Mona Forester may have been
some relative for whom she was named--possibly an aunt, or even her
mother, and thus I may be one of the heirs. But," she interrupted herself
and smiled, "what a romantic creature I am, to be weaving such a story
out of a mere advertisement! Still," she added, more thoughtfully,
"this woman's heirs cannot be very numerous or it would not be necessary