“You are going out. Don’t let me detain you. I was on my way down to Fourteenth Street to do a little shopping and just dropped in here to tell you a piece of news; but I can take another opportunity,” Mrs. Duncan explained. “Oh, no! Pray do not! We should die of suspense! Pray, sit right down and open your budget. Our errand can wait as well as yours. It is only shopping. And when you are ready for yours you would oblige us by taking the fourth seat in our carriage, so that we can go together,” Mrs. Walling pleaded. Mrs. Duncan laid down her muff and shopping bag and seated herself in one of the luxurious armchairs. Mrs. Walling rang a bell and gave an order: “Bring coffee into this room.” And presently the four women had tiny china cups in their hands, sipping hot and fragrant Mocha, three of them listening while the fourth told her news. “It is about Jennie Montgomery, the true wife of the counterfeit Randolph Hay——” began the speaker. “Yes! yes!” eagerly exclaimed Mrs. Walling and Palma in a breath, while Judy looked up in eager curiosity. “You know, without any one’s planning—unless fate be some one—that Jennie and her child were passengers on the same steamship, and even in the same cabin, with her fraudulent husband and his false bride?” “Yes! yes!” “I said when I discovered that complication that those elements were as explosive as dynamite. Neither could have expected the presence of the other on the steamer, and so I was really anxious to hear what happened when Miss Leegh and her ‘bridegroom’ met his lawful wife and child on the ship, on the ocean, whence neither could escape without jumping into the sea.” “Well, have you heard?” impatiently demanded Mrs. Walling. “Yes; I have just received a long letter from Jennie, dated November 15th. She had been at home four weeks before she found time to write to me.” “And——” breathlessly exclaimed Mrs. Walling. “She met her husband on the deck of the steamer. She was as much astonished as he was confounded. But I had better read her letter to you.” And the visitor drew a thickly packed envelope, with a foreign stamp, from her pocket, and read the pages describing Jennie’s voyage, her meeting with her husband and Miss Leegh on the _Scorpio_, and her arrival at home in her father’s new vicarage, as these events are already known to our readers. “To think of Jennie’s self-control and forbearance!” concluded Mrs. Duncan. “And to think of Lamia Leegh’s insolence in trying to patronize her, the real wife of her own ‘brevet’ bridegroom!” exclaimed Mrs. Walling. “And to think of the man’s assurance in carrying off matters with such a high hand!” remarked Palma.