When this was done, and the woman had left the room, and Jennie had put her baby to sleep in the pretty berceaunette that had been provided by her mother that very morning, and the father, mother and daughter were seated around the fire, both these women with needlework in their hands, the curate said: “Now, my dear, if you will, you may give us the explanation you promised. Hetty!” he said, suddenly turning to his wife, “did she tell you anything last night?” “Not a word. I would not let her talk. I made her go to sleep.” “That was right. Well, we know from her letter that she, daughter of a minister of the church of England, though a very humble one, and the wife of an ex-officer in her majesty’s service, though a most unworthy one—that she, a lady by birth and by marriage, was brought to such extremity as to be confined in the pauper ward of a public hospital, and to depend on private charity for her outfit and passage home to us.” “Thanks be to the Lord that we have her and her child safe and sound in mind and body, however they came to us!” fervently exclaimed Hetty Campbell. “I say we know all this from our child’s letter. But we do not know why all this should have happened in this way; nor why she never mentioned her husband’s name in her letter; nor why she comes to us with her child alone; nor why, when I asked her for an explanation, she replied to me that the kindest act he ever did for her was—to leave her.” “Oh, my Jennie! Oh, my dear Jennie!” exclaimed Hetty in a tone of pain. “Yes, mamma; it is true. The kindest thing he ever did for me was to leave me. I am not heartbroken over it. I have nothing, not the least thing, to reproach myself with in all my conduct toward him. Mamma, when I made Capt. Kightly Montgomery’s acquaintance I “‘Foregathered wi’ the de’il.’” “Oh, Jennie—my daughter!” “This is hard fact, mamma, as you will know when you have heard the story I am going to tell you. Is there any danger of any one coming in?” “No, dear. There is no one in the house besides ourselves except Elspeth, and as this is baking day she is very busy in the kitchen, and will not come in here unless she should be called,” said Hetty. Nevertheless, she got up and turned the keys in both doors. “Now, then, my dear,” she said as she resumed her seat. “It is a long story, and a painful one; yet, for every reason, I feel that I must tell you the whole of it without reservation, because I shall have to seek your counsel and be guided by it as to my future course,” said Jennie, turning to her father. “Yes; tell every word you know,” replied Jimmy.