It was a humiliation to her, that she felt poignantly, to be recognised by her father, and at the same time to have her mother ignored or treated as dead. She had caught the words of Sir Barnaby and her father's reply, and they had been as drops of flaming phosphorus falling on her heart. She would have turned, cried out that her mother lived, and was the noblest and purest of women, but that her sound reason assured her such an action would be fatal to her ambition. She must be patient. She must endure a little longer. The moment had not come. She must first weave herself round her father's heart before she could draw him in the direction she proposed. She now greatly regretted her rudeness to Jack on other grounds than that she had committed an offence. She would have liked to send back a message to her mother, together with a present, to assure her that she was not forgotten. But she could not ask a favour of one whom she had insulted. Had the lad deserved the treatment meted out to him? What fault of his was it that he was disappointed of his expectations on the death of his father, and that he had been forced to sell the cottage? He had done this so as honourably to pay his father's debts. Was he really responsible for the stories that circulated anent her mother? Had he not assured her that he did not believe in her mother's guilt? Why, then, was the young man to be snarled at? Her thoughts that had started with her mother and father now circled around Jack. She was turning the parcel he had given to her in her hand without considering it. Now she looked at it and found that it comprised a small box, tied up in paper and sealed. Doubtless it contained a letter. Winefred walked back beside her father to the square without uttering another word. Neither did Mr. Holwood speak. He, likewise, was engrossed in thoughts, and thoughts set with prickles. At the door they parted. 'I shall give myself the pleasure of calling for you again to-morrow,' said he. 'Your new equipment I must tell Mrs. Jones is eminently becoming.' She went to her room, and when she had removed her bonnet and mantle, she seated herself at the window, and unknotted the string that bound the parcel. A hundred, even fifty, years ago, no woman ever dreamed of cutting a string; she laboriously unknotted it, then did it up in a tag and laid it aside for further use. A small square cardboard case was disclosed that contained cotton wool, bedded in which were a pair of imitation pearl drop earrings. Folded about the case was a letter. This she proceeded eagerly to read,――it was from Mrs. Jose: