“I am alone in the world, except for my good old Peters,” said Mrs. Wroat, with a quiver of her pointed, up-turned chin. “These people here think only of what they can make out of me--of the fortune they hope to inherit at my death. I am old, and very near my end. I should like to leave my money to one of my own kindred, and to one who would really mourn a little for me when I am gone. I’m a queer old woman, Lally, full of notions, and so cross that any one but Peters would have given me up long ago; but, strange as it may seem, the good soul actually loves me. She’s been in my service five and thirty years, and she’s more a friend to me than a servant. Now, Lally, do you think you could ever love me? It’s odd, I own, but even a dried-up old woman like me sometimes yearns to be loved.” Her voice trembled, and tears brimmed over the bright black eyes, and her sharp features were convulsed in sudden emotion. She looked at Lally with a strange wistfulness and yearning, and Lally’s desolate, frozen soul thawed within her, and with a great sob she sprang up and threw her arms around her aged kinswoman, and kissed her fervently and tenderly. “I have no one to love,” whispered the girl, sobbing. “I would love you if you would let me.” A paroxysm of coughing seized upon the old lady, and Lally shrank back affrighted into her seat. Peters patted her mistress gently on her back and gave her water to drink, and she soon recovered, sinking back upon her cushions, tired and panting. “I am near the end, my dear,” she said, when she could command her voice. “I may live weeks, or it may be months; but the time is short. I like you, Lally, and I am going to adopt you and make you my heiress. You shall change your name to mine, and be known as Lally Wroat, and at my death you shall inherit my fifty thousand pounds. And all I ask of you, Lally, is to love me a little, and try to be a daughter to me. I never had a daughter of my own.” Lally raised the old lady’s hand reverently to her lips. “I am afraid all this happiness is not for me, madam,” she said bravely. “I am not what you think me, and you may not deem me fit to inherit your wealth. I--I have been married!” “Peters, the girl’s head is turned.” “No, madam, I speak the truth. I am pure in the sight of God, but I am a disowned wife.” “A wife--at seventeen?”