“Miss Lee—Miss Montrose,” said Mrs. Lansing, and the proud Ada bowed haughtily to the humble governess, who with heightened color took her accustomed seat at the table. “You have seen each other before, I believe,” said Mr. Delafield, looking curiously at both of us, while Mrs. Lansing, in much surprise, exclaimed, “Seen each other! Where, pray?” I waited for Ada to answer, and after staring at me a moment, she replied, quite indifferently, “Miss Lee’s face does seem familiar, and if I mistake not, I met her _once or twice_ in Boston”—and this was all she said, if I except a glance, half entreating, half threatening, which she threw at me from beneath her long, drooping eyelashes. This glance I did not then understand, but I now know it to have been prompted by a dread lest I should tell of her engagement with Herbert Langley, and thus betray her to Mr. Delafield, to whom, it seems, she had positively denied the whole, solemnly assuring him that there had never been between them anything more serious than a mere friendly acquaintance. When, therefore, she saw me, her fears were awakened, and knowing that I had her _secret_ in my possession, she looked upon me with suspicion and dislike, while I, wholly unconscious of her feelings, had not the least intention of ever speaking of the past, unless circumstances should render it necessary. But of this she was not aware, and that night, in the privacy of her room, she communed with herself as to the best means of counteracting anything which I might say concerning her conduct in Boston, deciding at last that the surest way of accomplishing her object was to brand me as a person whose word could not be trusted! And this she deemed an easy task, inasmuch as no one there had ever seen or heard of me before. Strange, too, as it may seem, there was mingled with her distrust of me a slight shade of jealously lest Mr. Delafield should in any way notice me. True, I was a poor obscure girl, earning my daily bread, and on no point could I compete with her save one, and that was age, I being, as she well knew, eight or nine years her junior. To be old and unmarried was with her almost a crime, and as year after year passed on, leaving her still Ada Montrose, her horror of single blessedness increased, while at the same time she seemed to look upon those much younger than herself as almost her enemies, especially if they came between her and Mr. Delafield, who, as the world goes, was at the age of thirty-one more likely to choose a girl of eighteen than one of twenty-seven. This, then, was my fault. I was young and had also in my possession a secret which she did not wish to have divulged, for well she knew that one as upright and honorable as Mr. Delafield would despise a woman who could stoop to a falsehood as she had done.