“Aren’t they lovely, mamma?” she cried with unusual animation as the door opened and her mother entered. “Yes; where did you get them?” she asked, but in an indifferent tone. “Mr. Winthrop sent them.” “Mr. Winthrop?” Mrs. Rochester repeated sharply, bestowing a searching glance upon the young lady. “Yes—Mr. Norman Winthrop,” and a swift wave of color flitted across the girl’s fair face; for since the arrival of the Winthrop family in Paris, Dr. Winthrop’s twin brother had paid very marked attention to Sadie Rochester. “S—adie!” said her mother in a tone of grave reproof as she noticed the flush. “I hope there will be no nonsense in that direction.” The young girl laughed lightly but with averted face. “You intend to marry Dr. Winthrop, don’t you?” pursued the elder woman, looking anxious. “Yes, if I can only induce him to ask me,” Miss Rochester answered coldly, but looking a trifle pale. “Then let his brother alone,” said her mother sternly—“you have no business to coquet with him; you’ve broken hearts enough without making mischief in that family.” “Pshaw, mamma!” retorted the young lady impatiently, but her under lip trembled slightly as she spoke. “Norman Winthorp is capable of taking care of his own heart.” “Capable or otherwise, you had better take my advice and let him alone,” was the quick retort. “Why can’t you behave yourself, if you have made up your mind to marry his brother? Dr. Winthrop is a man who will never be trifled with, if, indeed, he can be won at all. And, S—adie——” “Why do you keep halting and stumbling over my name in that fashion, mamma?” Miss Rochester demanded, with an irritable tap of her pretty foot—“it is, to say the least, very—unpleasant.” “Yes, I know, but somehow, I am so upset, I couldn’t help it. You will not wonder that I halt and stumble, when I tell you—oh! whom do you suppose Dr. Winthrop’s wife was?” “What a question! How could I possibly know?” returned Miss Rochester, with an indifferent shrug of her shapely shoulders, as she stood back a step or two to admire the arrangement of her flowers. “Salome Howland!” “What!” screamed the astonished young woman, as she turned and faced her mother, doubt and terror depicted upon her face, which was now as white as the dainty cashmere robe in which she was clad. “It is true,” said her mother. “Good gracious, mamma! it can’t be possible! I cannot believe it! And—and you know we thought she was dead long ago.” Miss Rochester had now forgotten both her flowers and their giver—everything but the amazing news which her mother had brought her, and, sinking weakly upon a chair, she continued to stare blankly at her. “So she is—now,” Mrs. Rochester returned, with a satisfied inflection upon the adverb. “I do not wonder that you are astonished,” she resumed. “I thought I should lose my senses when Madame Winthrop told me of it. That girl who died in London must have been some one else of the same name.”