This last was lost upon the little lady, who cared nothing for Mr. Graham, and who continued: "Where did he come from?" "Really, I don’t know. Perhaps Mrs. Bartow can enlighten you," and Mrs. Reeves went through with a form of introduction, speaking the stranger’s name so low, that in the surrounding hum it was entirely lost on Mrs. Bartow, who bowed, and briefly stated that Walter was from Deerwood, Mass. The lady’s hands worked nervously together, and when Walter again drew near, the white, thin face looked wistfully after him, while the lips moved as if they would call him back. He was disengaged at last. Jessie had another gallant in the person of William Bellenger, Mrs. Bartow’s fan moved faster than before, and Mrs. Reeves was about to make some remark to her companion, when the latter rose, and crossing over to where Walter stood, said to him in a low, pleasant voice: "Excuse me, Mr. Marshall, but would you object to walking with me,—an old lady?" Walter started, and looking earnestly into the dark eyes, which were full of tears, offered her his arm, and the two were soon lost amid the gay throng. "Who is she? I didn’t understand the name," Mrs. Bartow asked, her lip dropping suddenly, as Mrs. Reeves replied: "Why, that’s the honorable Mrs. Bellenger, returned from a ten years’ residence abroad." "Mrs. Bellenger," Mrs. Bartow repeated. "Is it possible? I have always had a great desire to make her acquaintance. How plain, and yet how elegantly she dresses." "She is not the woman she used to be," returned Mrs. Reeves. "She is very much changed, and they say that during the last year of her sojourn in London she spent her time in distributing tracts among the poor, and all that sort of thing. I wonder what she wants of Mr. Marshall. Wasn’t it queer the way she introduced herself to him?" "Very," Mrs. Bartow said; but she thought, "not strange at all," and she was half tempted to tell her friend the relationship existing between the two. This she would perhaps have done had not Mrs. Reeves at that moment directed her attention to William and Jessie, saying of the former that he seemed very unhappy. "The fact is," she whispered, confidentially, "he never appears at ease unless he is somewhere near Charlotte. I think he monopolizes her altogether too much. I tell her so too. But she only laughs, and says he don’t go with her any more than with Jessie Graham, though everybody knows he does. He likes Jessie, of course, but Charlotte is his first choice," and the old lady glanced complacently toward the spot where her sprightly granddaughter stood surrounded by a knot of admirers, each of whom had an eye to her father’s coffers as well as to herself.