ken, was
difficult to tell. One thing was certain--that something in the last few
moments had broken him down in health and spirits, even more than his
long previous sickness. What was it?

Josephine, ever an excellent nurse in sickness (spite of her rapid
tongue), and the one of all a crowd who was certain to have the head of
the fainted woman on her breast, and her hands chafing the pallid
temples,--assisted the invalid back to his recumbent position as quickly
and as easily as possible; and at the moment when she had once more
arranged the pillow under his head on the sofa, the glass doors between
the front and back parlors slid gently apart, and Isabel Crawford and
her cousin the Colonel, who had lately been the subject of so much
speculation and agitation, approached the sofa of the rheumatic. His
eyes were closed, and Josephine was standing at the open window with its
closed blinds. Still she saw what the new-comers did not--a quick,
convulsive shudder pass over the recumbent form, and the hand that lay
on his heart close with a nervous spasm, as if it was crushing something
hateful and dangerous that lay within it.

But the personal appearance of the two who had just entered, and the
after events of that interview, must be recorded in a subsequent
chapter.

CHAPTER III.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER--LOVE, HATE, AND DISOBEDIENCE--JUDGE OWEN IN A
STORM--AUNT MARTHA AND HER RECORD OF UNLOVING MARRIAGE AND WEDDED
OUTRAGE.

It was a very pleasant picture upon which Mrs. Maria Owen, wife of Judge
Owen of the ----th District Court, was looking just at twilight of a
June evening; but something in that picture, or its surroundings, did
not seem to please her; for her comely though matronly face was drawn
into an expression of displeasure, and the little mice about the
wainscot, if any there were, might occasionally have heard her foot
patting the floor with impatience and vexation.

The time has been already indicated. The place was the back parlor of
Judge Owen's house, on a street not far from the Harlem River--the
window open and the parlor opening into a neat little yard, half garden
and half conservatory, with glimpses over the unoccupied lots beyond, of
the junction of Harlem River with the Sound, up which the Boston boats
had only a little while before disappeared on their way eastward, and
where a few white sails of trading-schooners and pleasure-boats could
yet be seen through the gathering twilight.

B