"I wish I knew where mother was buried," Edith sighed, her tears falling to the memory of her girl mother, whose features it seamed to her she could recall, as well as a death-bed scene, when somebody with white lips and mournful black eyes clasped her in her arms and prayed that God would bless her, and enable her always to do right. It might have been a mere fancy, but to Edith it was a reality, and she said within herself, "Yes, darling mother, I will do right, and as I am sure yon would approve my giving myself to Richard, so I will be his wife." One wild, longing, painful throb her heart gave to the past when she had hoped for other bridegroom than the middle-aged man on whose knee she sat, and then laying her hot face against his bearded cheek, she whispered, "You've told the story, Richard. It does not need Marie to confirm it, though she, too, will come sometime to tell me who I am, but when she comes, I shan't be Edith Hastings, shall I. The initials won't be changed, though. They will be 'E.H.' still--Edith Harrington. It has not a bad sound, has it?" "Don't, darling, please don't," and Richard's voice had in it a tone much like that which first rang through the room, when Edith said, "It cannot be." "Richard," and Edith took his cold face between her soft, warm hands, "Richard, won't you let the singing bird call you husband? If you don't, she will fly away and sing to some one else, who will prize her songs. I thought you loved me, Richard." "Oh, Edith, my precious Edith! If I knew I could make the love grow where it is not growing--the right kind of love, I mean--I would not hesitate; but, darling, Richard Harrington would die a thousand deaths rather than take you to his bosom an unloving wife. Remember that, and do NOT mock me; do not deceive me. You think now in the first flush of your gratitude to me for having saved your life and in your pity for my blindness that you can do anything; but wait awhile--consider well--think how I shall be old while you still are young,--a tottering, gray-haired man, while your blood still retains the heat of youth. The Harringtons live long. I may see a hundred." "And I shall then be seventy-nine; not so vast a difference," interrupted Edith.