I had no knowledge whatever of her, but on the first night of her arrival something in her face, something in her ways, reminded me of my wife. On the following morning she gave me a letter. It was from my wife, and was dated six years ago. How she discovered my address I cannot tell. It was to the effect that I should read it when she was dead, and it asked me simply to give a home to the friendless child who presented it. You can understand the effect it had upon me; questioning Jessie privately, I learned from her that she was indeed friendless and an orphan. I ascertained the place she came from, and was relieved to know that it was not the town in which I had been married. She had been stopping at an ordinary lodging-house, and I wrote to the address she gave me, but received no answer. In the mean time I feared that the quiet routine of the life I had led, and which suited me, was likely to be interrupted by the introduction into the house of another inmate. I resolved to take Jessie back to the friends she had been stopping with before she came here, and to arrange for her residence with them, undertaking to pay the expenses of her living, although, as you are aware, I could ill afford it. On the morning I took Jessie away, I gave her to understand that she would not return; but when I reached the place I found that her friends had left; I was told they had emigrated, and I made sure of the fact. It does not come within the scope of what I intended to relate to you to state why I was absent from home longer than I anticipated, nor what consideration influenced me in bringing Jessie back with me. But it is pertinent to say that I see in her the same qualities, the same frivolities and vanities which I know existed in my wife, and which entailed upon me the most bitter sorrow it has ever fallen to the lot of man to suffer. She is here, however, for good or for ill; if it turn out for good, it will be due to but one influence. I have nothing more to add except to exact from you the condition that not one word of what I have said shall ever be told to Jessie. CHAPTER XXI. I RECEIVE AN INVITATION. Thus abruptly uncle Bryan concluded his story. Some parts of it had moved me very deeply with sympathy for him; but the latter part, where he spoke of Jessie in such a strangely unjust and inexplicable manner, filled me with indignation. I had no time, however, to think about it, for almost immediately upon the conclusion of his story, Jessie came home, flushed and radiant, from her visit to the Wests. Our grave faces checked her exuberant spirits, and, looking from one to another, she sought for an explanation. 'Are you angry with me for going out?' she asked, divining that she was the cause of all this seriousness. 'No, my dear,' replied my mother; 'no one is, I am sure. I hope you enjoyed yourself.' 'I always do,' said Jessie, her face clouding, when I go to the Wests. Has anything disagreeable occurred?' 'No, Jessie, nothing.'