And Cora laughed immoderately, for she much enjoyed her sister-in-law's discomfiture. But Miss Arthur did not dismiss the matter from her mind, when she banged the door upon Celine. Angry as she had been with that damsel, it was not anger alone that moved her. Jealousy was at work, and suspicion. That evening, sitting beside her lover, she said to him, carelessly: "By the way, Edward, were you ever in Baltimore?" The gentleman stroked his blonde whiskers, and smiled languidly as he answered: "In Baltimore? Oh, yes; I think there are few cities I have not visited." And then something in the face of Miss Arthur made him inquire, with a slight acceleration of speech: "But why do you ask?" Miss Arthur considered for a moment, and replied: "My maid, Celine, thinks that she has seen you there." She was watching him keenly, and fancied that he looked just a trifle annoyed, even when he smiled lazily at her, saying: "Indeed! And when is your maid supposed to have seen me there?" "I don't know when,"--Miss Arthur was beginning to feel injured; "I suppose you are well known in society there?" He smiled and still caressed his chin. "So so," he said, indifferently. "Edward!"--the spinster could not suppress the question that was heavy on her mind--"were you ever engaged to a lady in Baltimore?" He turned his blue eyes upon her in mild surprise. "Never," he said, nonchalantly. She looked somewhat relieved, but still anxious, and the man, after eyeing her for a moment, placing one hand firmly upon her own, said, in a tone that was half caress, half command, "Ellen, you have been listening to gossip about me. Now, let me hear the whole story, for I see it has troubled you, and I will not have that." She, glad to unburden her mind, told him what Celine had said. Perhaps Celine had counted upon this, and was making, of the unconscious Mr. Percy, a tool that should serve her in just the way that he did. At all events, while he listened to the spinster, he assured himself that if the French maid were not, for some reason, an enemy, she was certainly a meddler, and that she must quit Miss Arthur's service. He said nothing to this end that evening. But he fully satisfied Miss Arthur that he was not the person referred to by the girl. And to guard against further inquiries or accidents, he told her of several men of the name of Percy, who were much in society, and might be, any one of them, the man in question. And his _fiance_ was calmed and happy once more.