"Yes," rejoined Arthur quickly, "Nina's love for me had died away, and centered itself upon another. Charlie Hudson had sought her for his wife, and while confessing her love for him she insisted that she could not be his, because she was bound to me. This, however, did not prevent his seeking an interview with her father, who told him frankly the terrible impediment to Nina's marriage with any one. It was a crushing blow to young Hudson, but he still clung to her with all a brother's devotion, soothing her grief upon the sea, and caring for her tenderly until Boston was reached, and he placed her in my hands, together with a letter, which her father wrote a few days before he died." "He's married now," interrupted Nina, "Charlie's married, but he came to see me once, down at the old Asylum, and I saw him through the grates, for I was shut up in a TANTRUM. He cried, Miggie, just as Arthur does sometimes, and called me POOR LOST NINA. He held an angel in his arms with blue eyes like mine, and he said she was his child and Margaret's! Her name was Nina, too. Wasn't it nice?" And she smiled upon Edith, who involuntarily groaned as she thought how dreadful it must have been for Mr. Hudson to gaze through iron bars upon the wreck of his early love. "Poor man," she sighed, turning to Arthur. "Is he happy with his Margaret!" "He seems to be," said Arthur, "People can outlive their first affection, you know. He resides in New York now, and is to all appearance a prosperous, happy man. The curse has fallen alone on me, who alone deserve it." He spoke bitterly, and for a moment sat apparently thinking; then, resuming his story, said, "I did not open Mr. Bernard's letter until we reached the Revere House, and I was alone in my room. Then I broke the seal and read, while my blood curdled within my veins and every hair pricked at its roots. The old man knew he was about to die, and confessed to me in part his manifold transgressions, particularly his inhuman treatment of his last wife, the mother of little Miggie, but as this cannot, of course, be interesting to you, I will not repeat it." "Oh, do," exclaimed Edith, feeling somehow that anything concerning the mother of Miggie Bernard would interest her. "Well, then," returned Arthur, "he did not tell me all the circumstances of his marriage. I only know that she was a foreigner and very beautiful--a governess, too, I think in some German family, and that he married her under an assumed name." "An assumed name!" Edith cried. "Why was that, pray?"