"Oh, what shall I do?" she moaned, tremblingly. "It were a thousand times better, papa, if I had died with you." The room door opened suddenly and without warning, and Mrs. Groves reappeared. "Here's a young man asking for you, Miss Vane. P'r'aps he'll tell you how to make a honest living now your pa's dead," she said, with a coarse, significant chuckle. She hustled the visitor across the threshold, and, closing the door, stumped loudly down the passage, but returned in a moment on tip-toe, to play the eavesdropper. The room was all in darkness save for the gaslight that streamed through the open window. Laurel turned quickly to light her little lamp, wondering who her visitor might be. To her amazement she saw the rather good-looking and bold-eyed clerk she had met at the publishing-house that morning. "Good evening, Miss Vane," he said, insinuatingly. "I ventured to call, thinking that you might need a friend." The quick instinct of purity took alarm in Laurel's breast. She drew back coldly as he offered her his smooth, white hand. "I needed a friend this morning, but you did not seem to remember it then," she said, scathingly. "I--ah--oh, I was taken by surprise, then. I had not my wits about me," he stammered, disconcerted. "Pray pardon my forgetfulness. I have been thinking about you all day, and wishing I could help you. Here is my card. Pray command my services." Laurel took the bit of gilt-edged pasteboard, and read the name written on it in smooth copper-plate. It was "ROSS POWELL." The young man had seated himself, meanwhile, with the coolest self-possession. Laurel looked at him with her great, wistful, dark eyes. "Do you really mean what you say?" she inquired, a faint ring of hope in her dejected voice. "Yes. I infer that your father has left you without means of support, and I wish to offer you a good situation," Mr. Powell replied, suavely, with a sparkle in his bold gray eyes. The girl clasped her little hands impulsively together. Hope and fear struggled together on her fair young face. "But I don't know how to do anything," she cried, ingenuously. "I have never been to school like other girls. I've always kept papa's rooms and mended his clothes, and made my own dresses, but I couldn't do anything like that well enough for any one else." Ross Powell's gray eyes sparkled wickedly. He kept the lids drooped over them, that Laurel might not see their evil gleam. "Oh, yes, you could!" he exclaimed. "I know some one who wants a little housekeeper just like you, to keep two beautiful rooms in order as you did for your father. Will you come, Laurel?" "Who is the person?" she inquired, flushing sensitively at his familiar utterance of her name. Ross Powell moved his chair to Laurel's side, and gazed deep into her beautiful, wondering dark eyes.