“No, miss. He done went away quite a spell ago, but Miss Rossie’s ’spectin’ him every day. He don’t live here, though, when he’s home; he stay mostly in de town.” Josephine did not understand her, and continued: “He will come here, I suppose, as soon as he returns?” “Yes, miss, he’s sure to do dat,” and Axie nodded knowingly. Of course, she had no suspicion who this lady was, walking about the room and examining the furniture with a critical and not favorable eye, and asking, at last, if there was no fire where she could warm herself after her cold ride? On being told there was a fire in Miss Rossie’s room, she took from her purse one of the cards she had had engraved in Paris, and bidding Axie take it to Miss Hastings, sat down to await the result. To Agnes she said, in something of her old, dictatorial tone: “Pray, don’t look so nervous and frightened, as if we were a pair of burglars. It is my husband’s house, and I have a right here.” “Yes, I know,” faltered Agnes; “but it looks as if they did not expect you,—as if he did not know you were coming, or he would have been home, and it’s all so dreary; I wish I was back in Holburton,” and poor, homesick Agnes began to cry softly. But Josephine bade her keep quiet. “You let me do the talking,” she said. “You need not speak, or if you have to you must assent to what you hear me say, even if it is not all quite true.” Josephine had expected Rosamond herself, and had taken a very pretty attitude, and even laid off her hat so as to show her golden hair, which, in the dampness, was one mass of waves and curls and little rings about her forehead. She meant to astonish and dazzle the girl whom she suspected as her rival, and who she imagined to be plain and unprepossessing, and when she heard a step outside she drew herself up a little, but had no intention of rising. She should assert her superiority at once, and sit while she received Miss Hastings rather than be received by her. How then was she disappointed and chagrined when, instead of Rossie, there appeared on the threshold a middle-aged woman, who showed that she was every whit a lady, and whose manner, as she bowed to the blonde beauty, brought her to her feet immediately. “Mrs. Forrest?” Mrs. Markham said, interrogatively, consulting the card she held, and then glancing at Josephine, who answered her: “Yes, Mrs. J. E. Forrest. My husband, it seems, is not here to receive me and explain matters, for which I am very sorry.” Even then Mrs. Markham had no suspicion of the truth. The husband referred to was, of course, some distant relative, who was to have been there in advance of his wife, and she replied: “No, there has been no gentleman here, but that does not matter, except as it may be awkward for you. Miss Hastings will make you very welcome, though she is sick to-day and in bed. Your husband is a relative of Mr. Everard Forrest, I presume.”