“For an instant there flashed upon my mind a thought, the reality of which would prove a living death, and in that interval I felt all the sickening anguish which would surely come upon me were I to take her place in everything. But she did _not_ mean that. She could not doom me to such a fate, and so when she said to me again faintly, oh! so faintly, while the perspiration stood on her white lips, and her cold hand clasped mine pleadingly, ‘Promise, Dora, to be my children’s mother.’ “I answered, ‘Yes, I will care for and be to them a mother.’ “‘You make me so happy,’ she replied; ‘for, Dora,’ and her dim eyes flashed indignantly, ‘you may say it was all in a jest, but I know that dreadful _whistling_ girl meant more than half she said. She fancied John, and sometimes I thought he fancied her. Dora, I should rise out of my grave to have her there, in my room, riding in my carriage, sporting my diamonds, and using my dresses, the whistling hoyden!’ “I shed tears of repentance over Margaret’s dead body for the merry laugh I could not repress at the mere idea of her being jealous of Jessie Verner, who was only eighteen years of age, while brother John was almost forty. My laugh disturbed her, and so I forced it back, going at her request for John, who, when next we met alone, stroked my hair kindly, saying to me: “‘You are a good girl, Dora, to make Madge so easy about the children.’ “Again that torturing fear ran like a sharp knife through every nerve, and hurrying on to the farther end of the long hall, I sat down upon the floor and wept bitterly as I thought, ‘What if Margaret did mean that I should some time be his wife. Am I bound by a promise to do so?’ “From the busy street below came up a hum of voices, among which I recognized the clear, musical tones of Dr. West, while there stole over me a mad desire to fly to him at once, to throw myself into his arms and ask him to save me from I knew not what, unless it were the white-faced sister going so fast from our midst. And while I sat there crouching upon the floor, Jessie came tripping down the hall, her bright face all aglow with excitement, but changing its expression when she saw and recognized me.