Leslie Noble winces. Pride of birth is a strong point with him. He is exceedingly well-born himself. The story of this drunken, wife-beating fellow thrills him with keenest disgust. "Where is the fellow now--dead?" he asks anxiously. "No, indeed; at least, not that I ever heard of," Mrs. Cleveland answers. "I have no doubt he is alive somewhere, in state prison, perhaps, and he will turn up some day to claim his daughter, and drag her down to his own vile depths of degradation." Mr. Noble is silent from sheer inability to speak, and Mrs. Cleveland resumes, with apparent earnestness: "I have my doubts whether I am acting right in keeping the girl here. She is a dead expense to me, and the most ungrateful and violent-tempered creature that ever lived. Would you believe that she flew at poor, dear little Ivy, and boxed her ears this morning? My pity and affection for my sister induced me to give them a home as long as she lived, but now that her influence is withdrawn from Vera, she will be perfectly unmanageable. I think I shall send her away." "Where?" inquires Mr. Noble, trying to keep his eyes from the pink and white face of Ivy, who is listening intently to every word, without speaking herself. "To some place where she may earn her own living, or, perhaps, to the House of Correction. She sadly needs discipline," is the instant reply. Leslie Noble's face turns from white to red, and from red to white again. What he has heard has utterly dismayed him. "I wish that I had known all this yesterday, or last night," he mutters, weakly. "Why?" Mrs. Cleveland asks, startled by the dejected tone. Leslie Noble looks from her to Ivy, who has started into a sitting posture, and fixed her blue eyes on his face. "Because I have something shocking to tell you," he answers, growing very pale. "You must not be angry with me, Mrs. Cleveland, nor you, Ivy. It would not have happened if I had known all that I know now." "Oh, what can you mean?" screams Ivy, startled into speech by her vague fear. "You remember that I declined the Riverton's ball last night on the score of a violent headache?" he says, looking gravely at her. "Yes, and I missed you _so_ much. I did not enjoy the ball _one bit_," she murmurs, sentimentally. Mr. Noble sighs furiously. "I wish that I had gone, no matter how hard my head ached," he says, dejectedly. "Then Mrs. Campbell would never have sent for me to come to her room." "To come to her room!" mother and daughter echo in breathless indignation. "Yes," answers the young man, with another sigh. "Impertinent! What did she wish?" Mrs. Cleveland breaks out, furiously, pale to the lips. "She wished to tell me that she was dying, and to leave her daughter in my care," he stammers, confusedly. "Go on," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims.