“Papa was unfortunate and died, and we moved into the country, where, for a time, mamma had a hard struggle to keep up, and at last took a few boarders in order to live,” she said; and her blue eyes were very tender and pathetic as she told what in one sense was the truth, though a truth widely different from the impression she meant to convey. Once Agnes, whose face was very white, gave her such a look of sorrowful entreaty that Mrs. Markham observed and wondered at it, just as she wondered at the great difference between the sisters, and could only account for it on the supposition that Agnes’ mother was a very different woman from the second Mrs. Fleming, who had been a friend of Mrs. Forrest, and a guest at her wedding! Miss Belknap was, of course, brought into the conversation, and Josephine was sorry to hear that she was not at home. “I depended upon her to vouch for my respectability. She knows me so well,” she said, explaining that Beatrice had been for some time an inmate of her mother’s house in Holburton, and that she had liked her so much, and then, more bewildered than ever, Mrs. Markham went over half-way to the enemy, and longed for the mystery to be explained. The next day, which was Saturday, it rained with a steady pour, and Josephine kept her room, after having expressed a wish to see Miss Hastings, if possible; but when this request was made known to Rossie by Mrs. Markham, she exclaimed: “No, no,—not her; not Joe Fleming! I could not bear it till Mr. Everard comes.” She was thinking of her hair and the letter, and the persistence with which Joe Fleming had demanded money from Everard, and it made no difference with her that Mrs. Markham represented the woman as pretty, and lady-like, and sweet. She could _not_ see her, and a message to the effect that she was too weak and sick to talk with strangers was taken to Josephine, who hoped Miss Hastings was not going to be seriously ill, and offered the services of her sister, who had the faculty of quieting the most nervous persons and putting them to sleep. But Rossie declined Agnes too, and lay with her face to the wall, scarcely moving, and never speaking unless she was spoken to. And Josephine lounged in her own room, and had her lunch brought up by Axie, to whom she tried to be gracious. But Axie was not easily won. She did not believe in Mrs. J. E. Forrest, and looked upon her presence there as an affront to herself and an insult to Rossie, and when about two o’clock the Rothsay _Star_ was brought into the house by her husband, John, who was in a state of great excitement over the marriage notice, which had been pointed out to him, she wrung from Lois the fact that she had carried a note to the editor, and had been paid a quarter for it by the lady up stairs. She put the paper away where it could not be found if Rossie chanced to ask for it.