During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly looking up and down the columns of an old Herald which Dick, Eudora’s pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements, until one struck her notice as being very singular from the fact that a name was appended to it, a thing she had never seen before. Holding it a little more to the light and bending forward she said, “Possibly this is the very person I want—one who will be either a companion or a waiting-maid, only the child might be an objection, though I do love the little things. Just listen,” and Anna read as follows: “WANTED—by an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few months old, a situation in a private family either as governess, seamstress, or lady’s maid. Country preferred. Address ——” Anna was about to say whom, when a violent ringing of the bell and a heavy stamping of feet on the steps with out announced an arrival, and the next moment a tall, handsome young man, exceedingly Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the arms of his mother, who, kissing his bearded cheek, welcomed him as her son. John, or Dr. Richards, did not care particularly to be caressed by ladies unless he could choose them, and releasing himself as soon as practicable from his lady mother’s embrace, he submitted himself a moment to his two elder sisters, and then, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light figure, and lifting her as he would have lifted a little child, kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an expression which told that, however indifferent he might be to others, he was not so to Anna. “You have not changed for the worse,” he said, replacing her in her chair and sitting down beside her. “And you are vastly improved,” was Anna’s answer, as she smoothed playfully the Parisian mustache, her brother’s special pride. Then commenced from mother and sisters a volley of questions. Had he been well? Did he like Paris? Was he glad to be home again? And why had he gone off without coming out to say good-bye? This last was put by his mother, who continued, “I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you have done with a wife in Paris?” “I should not have gone,” John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over his face. It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly, “Have you seen her since your return?”