“Pray excuse me, for giving way so foolishly,” Alice said at last, as she lifted up her head. “I was ill so long in Europe, and the voyage home was rough and stormy, and I kept my berth the entire two weeks we were out at sea, so that by the time New York was reached I could not stand alone. I am better now; home scenes and mountain air have done me good, but—but—oh, Miss Lennox, I cannot tell you now of the shadow which has cast a gloom over my whole life. Why, I have seen the time when my beautiful home had scarcely a charm for me, and in my wickedness I accused God of dealing too harshly with me. But He has been so good to me, who do not deserve kindness from Him. When I knew you were coming I went away among the hills and prayed that I might like you,—that your presence would do me good,—and I am certain the prayer was answered. I do like you. I feel a firm conviction that in some way you are destined to do us all an untold good. You do not seem like a stranger, but rather like a familiar friend, or I should not be talking to you as I am. Have you sisters, Miss Lennox?” The moment which Magdalen dreaded had come, when she was to be questioned by Alice with regard to her family, and she resolved to be perfectly frank, and keep nothing back which it was proper for her to tell. “I have no sisters that I am aware of,” she said. “I was adopted, when a little baby, by Mr. Roger Irving, who lived at Millbank, and was himself a boy then. The circumstances of my adoption were very peculiar, and such as precluded the possibility of my knowing anything of my family friends, if I had any. I have never known a sister’s love or a brother’s, or a father’s or mother’s, though I have been as kindly and tenderly cared for as if I had been the petted child of fond parents, and only an adverse turn in the wheel of fortune sent me from the home I loved so much.” She paused here, and Alice rejoined, “Mr. Irving? Millbank? Why, both are familiar names to me, and have been since I was a little girl at school in New Haven and knew Mr. Franklin Irving. And _you_,—why, yes,—” and Alice’s manner grew more and more excited, “you are the very Magdalen Frank used to tell me about and of whom I was sometimes jealous. You know Frank,” she continued, misconstruing the expression of Magdalen’s face. “Yes, I know Frank,” Magdalen replied, “and I, too, have heard a great deal of _you_, and was jealous of you at one time, I believe.”