"But, really, miss, you know 'tain't right for you to follow Mr. Belmont right into his mother's house," remonstrated Jones, uneasily; and as she stared at him, he added, coaxingly: "You better go wait down there at the corner while I go tell Mr. Belmont that you want him." "Why, what do you mean?" inquired Kathleen, sharply. "Why, ain't you Ivan Belmont's--sweetheart, miss?" "How dare you?" cried the girl. The lightnings of her eyes seemed almost to scorch him, and he faltered: "You--you asked for him that night when you came before; and Mrs. Carew--begging your pardon, miss--said you were _bad_, and told me to take you and throw you in the street." "So it was you that did it?" the girl cried, sharply. "No, miss. I could not have treated a dog like that," whispered Jones, glancing over his shoulder, lest he be overheard. Then he told her how much he had pitied her, and how he had placed her in the carriage, hoping some one would care for her. "God bless you for your pity!" cried the girl, melted almost to tears; and, in her turn, she told Jones who she really was, and that when she had asked him for his master that night, she had meant her father, not knowing that he was dead. "Mrs. Carew told you a willful falsehood," she said, angrily; then paused, remembering that it was not dignified to discuss her step-mother with a servant, no matter how great the provocation. "And you must really let me come in, because I have important business with your mistress. If she discharges you for permitting me to enter, I will get my friends to procure you another situation," she added, kindly. The man stood aside in respectful assent. "Thank you kindly, Miss Carew. You will find my mistress with her son and daughter in the library," he said. "So _he_ is here. So much the better," thought Kathleen. She swept, with an aching heart, down the superb hall of her old home, Jones gazing after her in respectful admiration. "My! what a high-stepping beauty! A regular goddess!" he ejaculated; and breathed a silent prayer that the disinherited daughter might yet oust these heartless people out of her old home and come into her own. Kathleen, pale with passion, flung back the library curtains with a shaking hand, and stood revealed to the inmates. Ivan Belmont had read with horror in a distant city the marvelous story of his step-sister's resurrection and return. Trembling with fear, he recalled the night when he had encountered her upon the steps and fled away from her, believing she was a ghost. He had come home to find out the truth, and was even now listening to the story, as told by his mother and sister, when the curtains parted, flung back by an angry hand, and Kathleen, beautiful and imperious in her righteous wrath, stood revealed to their astonished eyes. A gasp of astonishment, and Mrs. Carew rose, tall, stately, insolent.