"I can understand, mamma, how this would strike you. I am quite sure if you had known her, you would not have wondered, or blamed; you would only have pitied. She spoke to me because she saw my friendship, and because, poor soul, she had seen no one but the servants for weeks or months. I shouldn't have wondered if she had told me her whole history the first time that I saw her." "But she never did tell you her whole history, Missy. You know nothing of it really, notwithstanding all the time you spent with her." "And that you find against her! Really, mamma, you are hard to please. You reproach her for telling me so much, and you distrust her because she did not tell me more." "Vague accusations, and complaints of injustice are easily made, Missy. I should think we were in a better position to judge of matters, if you had ever had a plain story of her life and its wrongs given to you." "I wish, for your sake, that I had; but perhaps it was more noble in her to die without doing it. I am afraid, mamma, we shall never think alike about this. But if you can't sympathize with me, at least do not try me by too much approbation of this man. I will bear anything in reason; but if you and Aunt Harriet and St. John all continue to pay homage to him as you did to-night, I shall think it rather trying." "Oh, as to that, I think we were only civil; and you were quite as amiable as we--which, my dear, you must continue to be, if you hope to keep any hold over Jay's fate. Poor little fellow! do not, by an unnecessary show of rancor, throw him back into the arms of Alphonsine and Bridget." "That is the only thing," said Missy, crossing the room to fasten the window for the night. "I mean to get my own way about him; and I only hope it will not involve speaking many more words, good or bad, to his father." CHAPTER IX. THE SWEETS OF VICTORY. The next morning a little note came from Mr. Andrews. It was addressed to Missy. "Dear Miss Rothermel-- "The woman named Alphonsine is very penitent, and begs to stay. Do you think I might allow her? Very truly yours, "JAMES ANDREWS." Missy dashed off a reply on the other side of his sheet of paper in pencil. "Don't keep her on any account. She is the worst of them all. A.R." As Missy twisted this up and handed it to the messenger, Mrs. Varian rather anxiously asked to see it. "Don't you even put it in an envelope?" she said glancing over the meagre slip. "Your notes are generally so nice; this doesn't look like you, and is hardly civil." "Business is business," said Missy, twisting it up again, and going out to give it to the messenger. "I don't think it is worth while to waste monograms and London paper on such matters as these." "What sudden thrift! Where are the children?"