Miss Vaux was silent, looking inquiringly into the woman’s face. It was partly turned from her, partly shaded with her thin hand; her large eyes looking up with a strange agonized look into Gabrielle’s eyes, her pale lips moving convulsively. Gabrielle’s face was almost as pale as hers; her look almost as full of agony. Miss Vaux glanced from one to the other, at first with pity; then suddenly a quick change came over her face, a deep flush mounted to her brow, she darted from her seat, and—calm as she ordinarily was—her whole figure trembled as she stood before them, with her fierce gaze turned on them. Pale as death, neither of them speaking, they bore her passionate look; quite motionless, too, except that Gabrielle had instinctively clasped the widow’s hand in hers, and held it tightly. “Speak to me, Gabrielle!” Miss Vaux cried; and her voice, harsh, loud, and quivering with passion, echoed through the room—“tell me who this woman is?” From the widow’s lips there burst one word—one word like a sudden bitter cry—“Joanna!” She stretched out her arms imploringly, trying to grasp even her daughter’s dress; but Miss Vaux sprung from her, and stood erect in the center of the room; her tall figure drawn to its full height; her burning eye still turned with unutterable anger upon the crouching woman near her. “You have dared to do this. You have dared to seek us out here, where we had hoped to hide ourselves from the scoffing of the bitter, heartless world; where we had tried by acts of charity, by suffering and penance, to blot out the recollection of the shame that you have brought upon us! Are we nowhere secure from you? What have we to do with you? You cast us off years ago.” “Sister, sister,” cried Gabrielle’s imploring voice, “oh, remember, whatever she has done, that she is still our mother. Have mercy on her, for she cannot bear this!” But sternly and coldly came Miss Vaux’s answer— “Did she remember that we were her children when she left us? Did she remember that our father was her husband? We all loved her then—she was very dear to us—but she turned all our warm love into bitterness. She destroyed our happiness at one stroke, for ever; she blighted, without a pang, all the hope of our young lives; she branded us with a mark of shame that we can never shake off; she plunged an arrow into the heart of each of us, which lies festering there now. Are these things to be forgiven? I tell you it is impossible! I will never forgive her—I swore it by my father’s deathbed—never while I live! Gabrielle, this is no place for you. Come home with me.” “Hear me first?” the mother cried, creeping from the seat in which she had sunk back, and cowering, with hidden face, had listened to her daughter’s words, “hear me before you go! I have deserved every thing—every thing you can say; but oh, from you it is bitter to hear it! Oh! my daughter, listen to me.” She flung herself at Miss Vaux’s feet, on the bare floor.