Between herself and Jack there was a stormy interview one night after Annie was asleep, and the brother and sister sat together before the grate, talking first of the past and then of the future. Jack had received, as he thought, an advantageous offer to go to Jersey City and enter an insurance office. There was a house there for sale on very reasonable terms, and Jack’s friend urged him to buy it, and have a home of his own. How Jack’s heart beat at the thought of a home of his own, with no constantly recurring rent-bill to pay, and no troublesome landlord spying about for damages! A home of his own, which he could improve and beautify as he pleased, with a sense of security and ownership, and where, perhaps, Georgie might be induced to stay a portion of the time. In Annie’s present helpless condition it was desirable that she should not often be left alone, and as old Luna must at times be out, it seemed necessary that a third person should form a part of Jack’s household, and who more fitting and proper than Georgie, provided she could be made to think so. Jack did not expect her to give up Aunt Burton’s home, with its luxuries, altogether; only for a time he wanted her, and he was revolving in his mind how to tell her so, when she surprised him with the announcement that “she was going back to New York in a few days; that she had already stayed longer than she intended doing, especially after she found how well Annie was, and how little she needed her except for company.” Jack was astonished. He had fully expected Georgie to remain with him until spring, and he told her so, and told her further of his plans for the future, and his hope that she would be interested in his new home, if he had one, and stay there a portion of the time. Georgie heard him through, but there was an expression in her black eyes which boded ill to the success of Jack’s plan, and her voice, when she spoke, had in it a cold, metallic ring, which made Jack shiver, and involuntarily draw nearer to the fire. “_I_ bury myself in Jersey City! You must be crazy to propose such a thing. Why, I’d rather emigrate to Lapland, out and out. I can’t endure the place, and I don’t see why you want to go there. You are doing well here, and these rooms are very comfortable.” The fact was Georgie did not care to have Jack and Annie quite so near to herself as they would be in Jersey City, and she quietly opposed the plan, without however changing Jack’s opinion in the least. “Are you not afraid that your return to New York will bring up old times? There are those there still who have not forgotten,” she said, and in her eyes there was a kind of scared look, as if they were gazing on some horrid picture of the past. “And suppose they do remember,” Jack said, a little hotly. “There’s nothing in the past for which I need to blush; and surely no one could possibly recognize in the heiress Georgie Burton, the——”