“This paper,” said Elisha, when he had finished reading, “appears to be genuine. The evidence must have been satisfactory to you, Mr. Stacy, and to my father, since it appears to have been the cause of his making a new will; but as this new will probably concerns me and my children, I demand to know why; if the marriage was legal, it has been kept secret so long? The fact of the marriage does not explain what has happened to-day.” Mr. Stacy turned towards Gilbert's mother, and made a sign. “Shall I explain it in my way, Alfred?” she asked, “or will you, in yours?” “There's but one story,” he answered, “and I guess it falls to your place to tell it.” “It does!” she exclaimed. “You, Elisha and Ann, and you, Gilbert, my child, take notice that every word of what I shall say is the plain God's truth. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was a young woman of twenty, I came to this farm to help Ann with the house-work. You remember it, Ann; it was just after your mother's death. I was poor; I had neither father nor mother, but I was as proud as the proudest, and the people called me good-looking. You were vexed with me, Ann, because the young men came now and then, of a Sunday afternoon; but I put up with your hard words. You did not know that I understood what Alfred's eyes meant when he looked at me; I put up with you because I believed I could be mistress of the house, in your place. You have had your revenge of me since, if you felt the want of it--so let that rest!” She paused. Ann, with her handkerchief to her eyes, sobbed out,--“Mary, I always liked you better 'n you thought.” “I can believe it,” she continued, “for I have been forced to look into my heart and learn how vain and mistaken I then was. But I liked Alfred, in those days; he was a gay young man, and accounted good-looking, and there were merry times just before the war, and he used to dress bravely, and was talked about as likely to marry this girl or that. My head was full of him, and I believed my heart was. I let him see from the first that it must be honest love between us, or not at all; and the more I held back, the more eager was he, till others began to notice, and the matter was brought to his father's ears.” “I remember that!” cried Elisha, suddenly.