“Not much, mother. Miss Summerhayes thought I had Charles in my name, and I tell her I only wish I had.” “How did Miss Summerhayes know?” said Mrs. Harwood, with a faint, scarcely perceptible change of tone. “I beg your pardon, Janet; but how did you know--about that name?” “How could she know, mother, when it doesn’t exist! It was only a mistake she made.” “How did you know, Janet, we had that name--in the family?” Mrs. Harwood repeated the question with an insistence which was not like her usual easy-going way. “I suppose I must have--seen it somewhere,” Janet said, her color rising. She felt guilty; she did not know why. There was no harm in it. She might have said it was out of an old copybook; but somehow she did not--scared by she knew not what. Mrs. Harwood had been wheeled, to that end of the room to see the programmes, and to examine some new arrangements Gussy had been making for the ball. She dropped out of her hand the pretty pink programme which she had been holding, and called to her son to take her back to her place, with a change of mien which brought a chill over the party. Janet felt more and more guilty, though she did not know what she had done, nor why she could not confess frankly where she had got her information. The others soon recovered the momentary depression, and resumed their talk over the approaching event, but Janet stood at the piano, running over the notes of a waltz softly with one hand, and wondering why she should have produced, without intending it, so great an effect. Presently Mrs. Harwood called her, clapping her hands as she had a way of doing to secure attention. Janet hurried to her side. The old lady had recovered her composure, but she still looked grave. “My dear,” she said, “you will wonder that I was so startled. There was no reason. Of course you could know nothing. That was my husband’s name.” “Oh, Mrs. Harwood, I am so sorry. I can’t think what made me ask. It was because most people, I suppose, have more names than one: and Charles was the first that came into my head.” It will be seen that Janet told a little fib again, but she said it in a hurry, and did not mean it, or at least this was how she afterwards explained it to herself. “Then it was only what people call a curious coincidence,” said Mrs. Harwood, with a smile. CHAPTER XXV.