“How close some people are, especially rich old maids that have once been beauties! They have no children or husband to pick or peck at, and so they must pick and peck on those that have to do work for um. She don’t care about the nineteen cents—its only to have something to find fault with. To-morrow, at half past eleven, you call there for the seventeen dollars, and let her have the nineteen cents, if it will do her temper any good. Did Major Pierpoint appear displeased because I didn’t get the shirts there by six o’clock?” Mary blushed, she knew not why, at this common-place question, and looking up and seeing her ‘aunt’s’ eyes fixed inquiringly upon her face, she became too confused to speak in reply—and, after one or two attempts to answer, dropped her head over the collar in her hand, as if sewing it. “What is the matter with the child? What did Major Pierpoint say to you?” “Nothing.” “Nothing?” “Yes, m’m, here is the check he gave me.” Mrs. Phelps glanced at it. “It’s all right! Prompt pay—no nineteen cents to be cut off. But didn’t he say any thing to you?” Mary appeared still more confused. Her adopted mother looked at her steadily though without displeasure for a few seconds, then shook her head affirmatively, with a slight smile of self-satisfaction. “Humph,” she said to herself, “I see how it is! It has gone further than I thought. He came here to-night for nothing else in the world! Well, Mary, to-morrow, at twelve precisely, you must be at Major Pierpoint’s with them gloves, and handkerchiefs, and silk stockings. You must start at half past eleven, so as to call on the way on Miss Clayton for the money for her bill. Why do you blush so—are you afraid of Miss Clayton?” “No, aunt.” “Are you afraid of Major Pierpoint?” “No, aunt.” “Very well, child, go to your sewing.” Mary bounded away lightly, and Mrs. Phelps looked after her with a prideful glance; “yes, if she is not foolish she has her fortune made. I will say nothing to her of my suspicions, but let her have her own way. To talk to young girls on such a subject and try to guide and advise them, only makes puppets of them, and destroys the natural character. Leave Mary to her own native good sense and unbiassed feelings and she will be more likely to please such a man as Major Pierpoint than if she practised the most consummate artifices.” With these sensible reflections, Mrs. Phelps dropped the subject for that night.