"That was so like mother," says Monica, in a low tone. "She always knew where to _touch_ people." "Oh, no, my dear, not at all like her," says Miss Penelope, hastily. "She didn't _mean_ it, you must understand; she was the very soul of sweetness, and would not willingly affront any one for the world." For just an instant Monica lifts her eyes and gazes earnestly at her aunt; but the old face is so earnest and sincere that with a faint sigh she lowers her eyes again, and makes no further remark. "After that he married his cousin's wife, a widow with one child, this girl, Bella," says Miss Priscilla, still full of reminiscences, as old people will be. "A most unpleasant person I thought her, though she was considered quite a belle in those days." "She always appeared to me such a silly woman," says Miss Penelope. "She is worse than that now," says Miss Priscilla, who seems specially hard on the Fitzgeralds. "She is a shocking old woman, with a nose like a flower-pot. I won't say she drinks, my dear Penelope, because I know you would object to it; but I _hear_ she does, and certainly her nose is her betrayer." "Do you remember," says Miss Penelope, "how anxious she once was to marry George Desmond?" This she says in a very low tone. "Yes, I remember." The bare mention of her enemy's name has sent a flush of crimson into Miss Priscilla's cheeks. "But he never bestowed a thought upon _her_." "Oh, no, never," says Miss Penelope, after which both the Misses Blake grow silent and seem to be slowly sinking into the land of revery. But Monica, having heard the "enemy's name" mentioned, becomes filled with a determination to sift the mystery connected with him, now, to the end. "Aunt Priscilla," she says, softly, looking at her with grave eyes across Miss Penelope's knees, "tell me, now, why Mr. Desmond is our enemy." "Oh, not _now_," says Miss Penelope, nervously. "Yes, now, please," says Monica, with ever-increasing gravity. "It may all be said in a few words, Monica," says Miss Priscilla, slowly. "And what I have to say affects you, my dear, even more than us." "_Me?_" "Yes, in that it affects your mother. Twenty years ago George Desmond was her affianced husband. Twenty years ago, wilfully and without cause, he deliberately broke with her his plighted troth." "He threw her over?" exclaims Monica, aghast at this revelation. "Well, I never heard be used actual violence to her, my dear," says Miss Penelope, in a distressed tone; "but he certainly broke off his engagement with her, and behaved as no man of honor could possibly behave." "And mother must have been quite beautiful at that time, must she not?" says Monica, rising to her knees in her excitement, and staring with widely-opened eyes of purest amazement from one aunt to the other.