“Roxie? Roxie Fleming? Is she a second wife, and is there a step daughter much older than Josephine?” “Yes; but how did you know it, and where have you seen them?” Everard asked, eagerly, his anger giving way to his nervous dread of some development worse even than the dollar jewelry, which had hurt him cruelly. “Years ago, when I was a young girl, we had in our family a cook, Roxie Burrows by name, competent, tidy, and faithful in the discharge of her duties, but crafty, designing and ambitious. Our butcher was a Mr. Fleming, a native of Ireland, and a very respectable man, whose little daughter used sometimes to bring us the steak for breakfast in the morning, and through whom Roxie captured the father, after the mother died. She was so sorry for the child, and mended her frocks, and made much of her till the father was won, when, it was said, the tables were turned, and little Agnes mended the frocks and darned the socks, while Roxie played the lady. I remember hearing of the birth of a daughter, but I was married about that time, and knew no more of the Flemings until a few years later, when I was visiting in Boston, and mother told me that he was dead, and Roxie had gone with the children to some place West. I am sure it must be the same woman with whom you boarded. Has she sandy hair and light gray eyes, with long yellow lashes?” “Yes, she has; it is the same,” Everard replied, with a feeling like death in his heart as he thought how impossible it was now to tell his mother that Josephine was his wife.