She did drop in at Burt’s and looked at the silk, and saw another piece, more desirable every way, and fifty cents more a yard. And from looking she grew to coveting, and was sorry that she had not asked for seventy-five instead of fifty dollars, as the one would be as likely to be forthcoming as the other. Once she thought to open her letter and add a P. S. to it, but finally decided to wait and write again for the extra twenty-five. The merchant would reserve the silk for her a week or more, he said, and picturing to herself how she should look in the two shades of brown, Josey tripped off to the post-office, where she deposited the letter, which Everard found upon his table on his return from his mother’s grave. It was the silk which in Josey’s mind was the most desirable, but the music and the French must be had as well, and so she called upon a Mrs. Herring, who gave music lessons in the town, and proposed that she should have two lessons a week, with the use of piano, and that as compensation the lady’s washing, and that of her little girl, should be done by sister Agnes, who was represented as the instigator of the plan. As the arrangement was better for the lady than for Josey, the bargain was closed at once, and Mrs. J. E. Forrest took her first lesson that very afternoon, showing such an aptitude and eagerness to learn that her teacher assured her of quick and brilliant success as a performer. The French was managed in much the same way, and paid for in plain sewing, which Josey, who was handy and neat with her needle, undertook herself, instead of putting it upon her mother or poor Agnes, who, on the Monday following, saw, with dismay, the basket piled high with extra linen, which she was to wash and iron. There was a weary sigh from the heavily-burdened woman, and then she took up this added task without a single protest, and scrubbed, and toiled, and sweat, that Josey might have the accomplishments which were to fit her to be mistress of the Forrest House. Every day Josey passed the shop window at Burt’s, and stopped to admire the silk, and at last fell into the trap laid for her by the scheming merchant, who told her that three other ladies had been looking at it with a view to purchase, and she’d better decide to take it at once if she really wanted it; so she took it, and wrote to Everard that night, asking why he did not send the fifty dollars, and asking him to increase it with twenty-five more. CHAPTER VIII. EVERARD. He was so giddy, and sick, and faint, when he returned to the house from his mother’s grave, that he had scarcely strength to reach his room, where the first object which caught his eye was Josephine’s letter upon the table. Very eagerly he caught it up, and breaking the seal, began to read it, his pulse quickening and his heart beating rapidly as he thought, “She would be so sorry for me if she knew.”