"That then is the only trouble between us. Next Saturday evening I shall find you your old charming self?" "Perhaps," was her unsatisfactory answer. With a step that grew slower and heavier every moment, she went to her room, turned up the light, and looked fixedly at herself in the glass, "I wish that outward beauty Were the mirror of the heart," she repeated inaudibly, and the her exquisite lip curled in self-contempt. "Ida, what IS the matter with you?" drawled her mother, looking through the open door-way of her adjacent room. "You act as if you were demented." "Why did you make me what I am?" she exclaimed, turning upon her mother in a sudden passion. "Good gracious! what are you?" ejaculated that matter-of-fact lady. "I'm as good as you are--as good as our set averages, I suppose," she answered in a weary, careless tone. "Good night;" and she closed and locked her door. "Oh, pshaw!" said Mrs. Mayhew, petulantly; "those hymns have made her out of sorts with herself and everything. They used to stir me up in the same way. Why can't people learn to perform their religious duties properly and then let the matter rest;" and with a yawn she retired at peace with herself and all the world. Ida threw herself on a lounge and looked straight before her with that fixed, vacant stare which indicates that nothing is seen save by the eye of the mind. "Father's drunk to-night," she moaned; "I know it as surely as if I saw him. I also know that I'm in part to blame for it. Could outward beauty mask a blacker heart than mine? It does not mask it from him who sang those words," and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed, until, exhausted and disheartened, she sough such poor rest and respite as a few hours of troubled sleep could bring. Chapter XVIII. Love Put to Work. On the following day there was the usual bustle of change and departure that is characteristic of a large summer resort on Monday morning. Stanton found Mrs. Mayhew very ready to occupy the seats he had obtained, and all the more so from his statement of the fact that several others had spoken for them. "Ida, my dear," called her mother; "come here, I've good news for you. Ik has got us out of that odious corner of the dining-room, and secured seats for us at Mr. Van Berg's table." "I wish no seat there," she said decisively. "Oh, its all arranged, my dear; and a good many others want the seats, but Ik was too prompt." "I'll stay where I am," said Ida, sullenly. "And have every one in the house asking why?" added Stanton, provokingly. "Mr. Van Berg treats you as a gentleman should. Why cannot you act like a lady toward him? If I were you I would not carry my preferences for the Sibley style of fellows so far that I could not be civil to a man like my friend." "You misjudge me," cried Ida, passionately.