“Yes, my half brother Howard,” was the reply. “I’ve never spoken of him because—because,—well, there was a kind of coldness between us on account of his wife, whom I did not like. He brought her here when they were first married, and had she been a duchess she could not have borne herself more loftily than she did. I did not think her manners in good taste, and told my brother so; and as he was in the heyday of his honeymoon and saw nothing amiss in his Emily, we had a little tiff and parted coldly, and I have not seen him since. Regularly at the birth of his children he has written to me, and just before you came he wrote to say that Emily was dead. I answered, of course, and said I was sorry for him, and that I should be glad to see him and his children. There are three of them, and the eldest, a boy, bears my maiden and married name, Godfrey Sinclair Schuyler——” “Schuyler!” Edith said, and if possible, her always white face was a shade paler than its wont at the sound of that name. But Mrs. Sinclair was intent on her letter, and did not look at her as she replied: “Yes, my brother is Howard Schuyler, and his father, who was of English descent, married my mother, Mrs. Godfrey, when I was seven years old, and took us to New York, where mother died when Howard was a baby. I stayed in New York till I was seventeen, and then came back to live with my aunt and have seen but little of Howard since.” “And does he live in New York!” Edith asked; and Mrs. Sinclair replied: “Yes, or rather a little way out, in the town called Hampstead, on the Hudson river. He has a beautiful place, I am told, which they call Schuyler Hill.” “And you have news from him?” Edith said next, her heart beating rapidly at the lady’s reply. “Yes. He is in Scotland, it seems, and wrote to know if I could receive him and his son Godfrey about this time,—let me see, the 15th of June he said, and this is the 14th. I was to answer at once, and direct to Edinburgh, where he would wait my reply. His letter was written ten days ago, and I am so much afraid he has become impatient at not hearing from me, that he will perhaps go directly to the continent without stopping here at all. My head feels so badly, would you mind writing a few lines for me, just to say that I am home, and shall be glad to see him?” “Certainly not,” Edith answered in a voice which did not in the least betray the storm of feeling she experienced at being thus unexpectedly brought face to face as it were with a past she had almost outlived.