“No one will think of confounding _you_ with Mary Monson; and by going abroad, as you say it is your intention to do, you would effectually escape from even suspicion.” “You little know the world, my dear. I see that all the useful lessons I gave you, as your school-mamma, are already forgotten. The six years between us in age have given me an experience that tells me to do nothing of the sort. Nothing is so certain to follow us as a bad name; though the good one is easily enough forgotten. As Mary Monson, I am indicted for these grievous crimes; as Mary Monson will I be acquitted of them. I feel an affection for the character, and shall not degrade it by any act as base as that of flight.” “Why not, then, resort to the other means you possess, and gain a speedy triumph in open court?” As Anna put this question, Mary Monson came beneath the light and stopped. Her handsome face was in full view, and her friend saw an expression on it that gave her pain. It lasted only a moment; but that moment was long enough to induce Anna to wish she had not seen it. On several previous occasions this same expression had rendered her uneasy; but the evil look was soon forgotten in the quiet elegance of manners that borrowed charms from a countenance usually as soft as the evening sky in September. Ere she resumed her walk, Mary Monson shook her head in dissent from the proposition of her friend, and passed on, a shadowy but graceful form, as she went down the gallery. “It would be premature,” she said, “and I should fail of my object. I will not rob that excellent Mr. Dunscomb of his honest triumph. How calm and gentlemanlike he was to-day; yet how firm and prompt, when it became necessary to show these qualities.” “Uncle Tom is all that is good; and we love him as we would love a parent.” A pause succeeded, during which Mary Monson walked along the gallery once, in profound thought. “Yours promises to be a happy future, my dear,” she said. “Of suitable ages, tempers, stations, country—yes, country; for an American woman should never marry a foreigner!” Anna Updyke did not reply; and a silence succeeded that was interrupted by the rattling of a key in the outer door.