Here the two girls looked at each other for one of those swift exploring moments in which women seem to take in every detail of dress, every peculiarity of feature and revealing change of expression, that a rival has to show. Letitia, with all her apparent heaviness, had keen perceptions. With a sinking at her heart she saw the beauty of the gray eyes fastened shyly upon her, and realized what must be the power of the delicate charm, so far removed in its soft, dependent femininity from her own. She saw that this girl had a distinguishing refinement she could never boast, and that it was strong enough to triumph over such poverty-stricken surroundings as, in all her experience, she had never before encountered. Her quick eye took in the gaunt emptiness of the room as John Gault's could not have done in a week's arduous examination. She saw the split and ragged shades in the windows, the ribs of twine in the old carpet, the rents in the colonel's chair. Viola, for her part, saw one of the handsomest and most imposing young women she had ever gazed upon. The very way Letitia rustled when she moved, and exhaled a faint perfume with every movement, seemed to breathe an atmosphere of fashion and elegance. She had never seen her before, and had no idea who she was. Letitia soon put an end to this condition of ignorance. "My name is Mason," she said judicially--"Letitia Mason. I am the sister of Mrs. Mortimer Gault." At this announcement an instantaneous change took place in Viola. For a second she looked alarmed, then her face stiffened into lines of pride and anger. The eyes that had been so full of a naïve admiration were charged, as by magic, with a look of cold antagonism. Letitia felt her own breath quicken as she realized how much the name of Gault must mean to this girl. Viola attempted no answer to the introduction, and Miss Mason hastily went on: "My sister heard that you made jam--very good jam. We don't like what we get in the stores, so we thought we would try yours." Viola had now found her voice,--a very low and cold one,--and answered: "You can get it at the Woman's Exchange. I sell it there all the time." "Yes, I know that," said Letitia; "but we thought it would be better to buy it straight from you; that--perhaps--it--perhaps it would save time and trouble." "I don't see how it could do that. This part of town is a long distance out of everybody's way." "Yes, of course it is," the other agreed eagerly; then, with a sudden happy inspiration, "but I thought you might have a larger variety here--that you might have a good many different kinds on hand. I don't want all the same sort." Viola rose and went to the door that led to the dining-room. Her resentment was not more obvious than her embarrassment. There was something tremulous in the expression of her face that gave Letitia a wretched feeling that only pride enabled her to keep back her tears.