“Tina!” she exclaimed again. “Who I’d like to know is Tina?” Then remembering the surest way to find out who she was, was to read the letter, she took it up again, but hesitated a moment as if held back by some unseen influence; hesitated as we sometimes hesitate when standing on the threshold of some great crisis or danger in our lives. “If it is bad,” she said, “I do not wish to think ill of him. Oh, father, it _isn’t_ bad: it _must not_ be bad;” and the hot tears came fast, as the daughter who had believed her father so pure and good turned at last to the first page to see what was written there. It was dated at Marseilles twenty years before, and began: “Dear Mr. Hetherton, are you wondering why you do not hear from your little Tina?—” “Miss Hetherton, your grandmother is here asking for you,” came from the door outside at which Pierre stood knocking, and starting, as if caught in some guilty act, Reinette put the letter back in its envelope, and went down to meet her grandmother, who had come over for what she called a “real sit down visit,” and brought her work with her. There was nothing now left for Reinette but to leave the letters and devote herself to her guest, who staid to lunch, so that it was not until afternoon that Queenie found an opportunity to resume the work of the morning. Meanwhile her thoughts had been busy, and over and over again she had repeated to herself the words, “Your little Tina,” until they had assumed for her a new and entirely different meaning from the one she had given them in the first moment of her discovery. There might be—nay, there was no shame attaching to them—no shame in that blue-black tress of hair which she could feel curling around her fingers still, and see as it hissed and writhed in the flame. The letter was written _after_ her mother’s death. Her father was human—was like other men—and his fancy had been caught by some dark-haired girl of the lower class who called herself his “Little Tina;” she had undoubtedly bewitched him for a time, so that he might have thought to make her his wife. His first marriage was what they called a _mesalliance_; and here Queenie felt her cheeks flush hotly as if a wrong was done to her mother, but she meant none; she was trying to defend her father; to save his memory from any evil doing. If he stooped once, he might again, and the last time _Tina_ was the object. He had meant honorably by her always, and tiring of her after a little had broken with her, as was often done by the best of men. Of all this Queenie thought as she talked with her grandmother, answering her numberless questions of her life in France, and her plans for the future; and by the time the good lady was gone and she free to go back to her work, she had changed her mind with regard to Tina’s letters, and a strange feeling of pity for the unknown girl had taken possession of her, making her shrink from reading her words of