Something seemed choking Adah and preventing her utterance, for she did not speak until Mrs. Richards said again, this time with a little less suavity and a little more hauteur of manner, “Have I had the honor of meeting you before?”—then with a low gasp, a mental petition for help, Adah rose up and lifting to Mrs. Richards’ cold, haughty face, her soft, brown eyes, where tears were almost visible, answered faintly, “We have not met before. Excuse me, madam, but my business is with Miss Anna, can I see her please?” There was something supplicating in the tone with which Adah made this request, and it struck Mrs. Richards unpleasantly, making her answer haughtily, “My daughter is sick. She does not see visitors, but I will take your name and your errand.” Too much confused to remember anything distinctly Adah forgot Jim’s injunction; forgot that Pamelia was to arrange it somehow; forgot everything, except that Mrs. Richards was waiting for her to speak. An ominous cough from Eudora decided her, and then her reason for being there came out. She had seen Miss Anna’s advertisement, she wanted a place, and she had come so far to get it; had left a happy home that she might not be dependent but earn her bread for herself and her little boy. Would they take her message to Anna? Would they let her stay? and Adah’s voice took a tone of wild entreaty as she marked the lowering of madam’s brow, and the perceptible change in her manner when she ascertained that, according to her creed, not a lady but a menial stood before her. “You say you left a happy home,” and the thin, sneering lips of Eudora were pressed so tightly together that the words could scarcely find egress. “May I ask, if it was so happy, why you left it?” There was a flush on Adah’s cheek as she replied, “Because it was a home granted at first from charity. It was not mine. The people were poor, and I would not longer be a burden to them.” “And your husband—where is he?” This was the hardest question of all, and Adah’s distress was visible as she replied. “Willie’s father left me, and I don’t know where he is.” An incredulous, provoking smile flitted over Eudora’s face as she returned, “We hardly care to have a deserted wife in our family—it might be unpleasant.” “Yes,” and the old lady took up the argument, “Anna is well enough without a maid. I don’t know why she put that foolish advertisement in the paper, in answer, I believe, to one equally foolish which she saw about an unfortunate woman with a child.” “I am that woman. I wrote that advertisement when my heart was heavier than it is now, and God took care of it. He pointed it out to Miss Anna. He caused her to answer it. He sent me here, and you will let me see her. Think if it were your own daughter, pleading thus with some one.”