Kitty did not hear the reply, so great was her astonishment at learning that this woman, who had wounded her so cruelly, was Lottie Steele, the one for whom she had watched so long, and on whose acquaintance and friendship she had counted so much in her utter ignorance of the city and its customs. Alas, how had her idol fallen, and how were all her hopes destroyed! She had nothing whatever to expect in that quarter—nothing to expect anywhere; and, with a swelling heart as she remembered the church society at home, where she was what Lottie Steele was here, or, as her dear old auntie expressed it, “a cat among rats,” she gathered up her work, and bidding good-morning to the pleasant-faced woman at her side, who alone of all the ladies there had spoken familiarly to her, started for home, feeling more desolate and alone than she had thought it possible for any one in the great city of New York, which had once seemed to her like an earthly paradise. As she left the sewing-room she met the rector of the parish, who said a few friendly words to her and then passed on into the room, where he was immediately accosted by Lottie Steele, who asked him who the lady was he met with at the door. “That was Mrs. John Craig, from Rosefield,” he replied. “She is a stranger in the city, and I wish some of my ladies would take a little pains to be polite to her. Her former clergyman speaks highly of her as a Christian and a lady of culture and education. She is very regular at church, I see, and her husband is a splendid-looking fellow.” “Why, that must be the John Craig in our store,” chimed in Agatha Orr, a pert miss of seventeen. “Isn’t it, Mrs. Steele? You ought to know, for you and he used to be so intimate.”