Edith was sitting with her mother in the little house in Caledonia Street, when the above conversation took place. It was the day of Col. Schuyler’s departure for Paris, and she had driven into town, with permission to stay to tea if she liked. She had not intended to tell her mother what had been said to her by the colonel, but when questioned of him something in her manner excited Mrs. Barrett’s suspicion, and in her usual forcible way she wrung from her daughter the fact that Schuyler Hill had been offered to her and refused. To say that Mrs. Barrett was angry would feebly express her emotions. In all her dreams for Edith she had never hoped for anything quite equal to an alliance with Col. Schuyler, and now that she had wilfully thrown the chance away she was exceedingly indignant, and expressed her disapprobation in terms so harsh and bitter that Edith, who seldom felt equal to a contest with her mother’s fierce, strong will, roused herself at last and answered back: “Mother, you have said enough, and you must stop now and listen to me. You upbraid me for having thrown away the chance for which you have waited so long, and to which you say you have shaped every act of your life since I was born, and you accuse me of ingratitude when you have done so much for me. Mother, for all the real good you have done me I am grateful, and you know how gladly I will work for you so long as I have health and strength to do so, but for the secrecy you have imposed upon me with regard to my past life I do not thank you, and could I go backward a few years, or had my baby lived, I would have no concealments from the world. To me it is no shame that I was once the wife of Abelard Lyle; the shame is that I try to hide it, and when Colonel Schuyler asked me to be his, the truth sprang to my lips at once, and but for that terrible choking sensation which came upon me when you took baby away, I should have told him all.” “And ruined your prospects forever,” Mrs. Barrett said, angrily. “Yes, ruined them forever so far as Col. Schuyler is concerned, but that would have mattered little,” Edith answered, proudly. “I have no love for him; he has none for me. I asked him the question, and he could not tell me yes. His fancy was caught, and he talked of my beauty, and grace, and voice, and culture, and hinted that I was a fitting picture for his handsome home in Hampstead. You saw Lady Emily once. You remember how pale, and sallow, and thin she was. Neither gems nor rich gay clothing could make her fair to look upon, and I have no doubt her husband would be prouder of _me_ than he ever was of her, with all her money and Rossiter blood, that is, if he took me as Edith Lyle, the daughter of an English curate, and nothing more; but once let him know the truth, as he assuredly must have known it if I had for a moment considered his proposition,—and think you he would not have spurned with contempt the widow of a carpenter, and that carpenter his own hired workman?”