“Well, I should say it looks as much like Miss Polly Leonard as any one,” was the reply. “Exactly. There is the same parchment-colored face; the same shrewd, malicious eyes and grim mouth; while the prim, starched figure is almost identical. By the way, isn’t she the queerest specimen of humanity that you have ever met?” “She is peculiar, Mrs. Allison; but, poor woman! I can hardly wonder at it, for she has had trouble enough during her life to make her so,” was the pitiful reply of Mrs. Rogers. It was very strange, Salome thought, that the very woman with whom she was going to live should be thus discussed in her presence. At first she thought she would go away, for she was sensitive about listening to a conversation like this. Then she reasoned that the ladies must have seen her, and must know that she could hear all that was said, and if they did not think it worth their while to be cautious in their remarks it was no affair of hers, while she might possibly learn something about her patron that would aid in her future service, if she remained; so she sat still and waited with increasing interest for further developments. “I suppose she has,” the lady who had been called Mrs. Allison replied; “at least, I have heard that she was disappointed in love when she was young, and it completely changed her disposition. Do you know her history?” “Yes, and a very sad one it is, too,” Mrs. Rogers returned. “She was engaged to a fine young fellow and they were about to be married. She was living in Washington at that time; the day was set for the wedding, and she had everything ready, even to her veil and gloves. Her lover was an Eastern man—a native of Massachusetts—but he was in Washington for several weeks preceding the date set for their marriage. They had a bitter quarrel over something one evening at some private theatricals, and the match was broken off. Of course it broke the girl’s heart, and it came out later that some people, who had a petty spite against her, for some unknown reason, had influenced her betrothed against her, misrepresenting her character and disposition with the sole purpose of breaking off the marriage. It changed Miss Leonard from a bright, lovely, and fascinating girl into a wretched, revengeful woman—a despiser of all men—a hater of her own sex. Soon after she lost her father and mother, then a little later her only sister, and that left her without a relative in the world, though with a large fortune at her disposal, and she might have made a brilliant marriage. But her troubles, instead of chastening her, only served to increase the bitterness; she seemed to imagine every one her enemy, and so made herself everybody’s enemy. She left Washington soon after the death of her sister, and came to New York, where she secluded herself from all society. She bought and furnished that beautiful house on Thirty-ninth Street, where she has lived alone with her servants ever since. I have