“Ah, yes, this is it. Thank you; I am sorry to have intruded upon you.” Then, with an upward, admiring glance into the beautiful face, she added: “Pray, excuse me, but are not you the mother of the little girl who is playing with my son in the corridor? The resemblance between you is very striking.” “Yes, Virgie is my daughter,” Virgie answered, laying an unconscious stress upon the pronoun. “She is a dear little thing—so merry, yet so gentle and affectionate,” remarked Mrs. Heath, with a tender inflection which somewhat softened her listener, “and I believe she is the loveliest child I ever saw. How old is she?” “She was nine in June.” “And my boy is eight,” smiled the fond mother, with a proud, backward glance; “and he seems to have become really attached to Virgie during the little time they have played together. Have you been in Niagara long, Mrs. Alexander?” Virgie started at being thus addressed by the woman who bore the name which had once been rightly her own. “We arrived the day before yesterday,” she said, briefly. “Ah! So recently?” replied her companion, wondering why the beautiful woman should be so reserved. “Then you have had no opportunity to see the attractions of the place, and it is wonderful here. I have never seen anything so grand in all Europe as these mighty falls and the rapids.” She was so sweet and gracious, and evidently so desirous of pleasing, that Virgie was seized with an impulse to show her the better side of her character. She felt sure that they would meet again some day when, perhaps, their relative positions might be reversed, and something like a feeling of pity for the lovely woman prompted her to put aside her pain, her jealousy and bitterness, and exert herself to be agreeable. She responded cordially to the remarks she had just made relative to the scenery of that locality, and thus, once launched, she talked as she had never talked before—of nature, of art, of literature, of men, and things generally; and when, half an hour later, the two women separated, Mrs. Heath was fascinated, almost enraptured. “I have never met any one so brilliant or beautiful before,” she murmured to herself, as she went to call her boy from his play, remarking that he must bid his little friend “good-by, since papa had decided that they were to leave directly after dinner.” Several hours later, as the twilight had begun to deepen, Virgie, weak and pale from the excitement of the day, sat upon the balcony opening from her room, eagerly watching a little scene below. A carriage had just been driven to the door. Two large trunks were brought out from the hotel and strapped upon it, then a gentleman and a lady with a little boy and maid followed. Virgie crouched down behind the railing and strained her eyes for a look at that tall, manly figure, firmly believing it to be Sir William Heath—her recreant husband.