"I am afraid you were mistaken, my dear. I think it was Elaine he was smitten with. You had as well turn your attention to some one else with money, if you can find one, for it is very important that you should marry soon, and it is very evident that Guy Kenmore cares nothing for you," Mrs. Brooke said, tartly. "Elaine--always Elaine!" cried Bertha, in a passion. "Do you suppose he could care about her after I betrayed her shameful story to him?" Before Mrs. Brooke could reply there came a sharp peal at the door-bell that echoed weirdly through the great, silent house. Both ladies started violently. "Who can this be?--at this hour?" exclaimed Bertha, glancing at the clock, whose hands pointed to nine. "Some one who has come by the boat or the train," exclaimed Mrs. Brooke, nervously. "Perhaps Elaine!" "You are always harping on Elaine--you forget that Professor Bozzaotra has taken her to Europe to make her a _prima donna_," Bertha exclaimed, sharply. They heard old Faith, who was the only servant they retained now, waddling down the hall to the door, and waited a moment silently to learn whom their guest might be. The heavy hall-door opened, light steps sounded on the threshold, then suddenly a shriek of terror resounded through the house, and staid old Faith rushed back to the parlor door, tore it wildly open, and fled to the side of her mistress as if for protection. "Why, Faith, you old simpleton, what ails you? Have you seen a ghost?" exclaimed haughty Bertha. "Yes, Miss Bertha, that's just what I saw! I opened the door and there stood the ghost of Miss Irene, just risen from the sea," panted old Faith, overcome with terror and exhaustion, for she was very fat, and her flight had been sudden and rapid. "Ridiculous," sneered Bertha, and just then light feet came pattering along the hall, a slight figure flashed over the threshold--Irene, with the dark hood of her cloak fallen back on her shoulders, and all her wavy golden hair flying like an aureole around her beautiful, pale face! She ran up to the old housekeeper and shook her laughingly by the shoulders. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself, old Faith?" she said. "_I'm_ not a ghost--I am Irene, living and breathing! Pinch me if you don't think I'm telling the truth. I've come to see my mother," her eager glance roving around the room. "Oh, where is she, where is she?" CHAPTER L. For a moment Mrs. Brooke and Bertha were almost as much unnerved and startled as the old housekeeper had been. They stared in speechless amaze at the fair, young face, like, yet unlike, Irene Brooke's--like it in the bright, captivating beauty that had been the girl's glorious dower, yet changed because a woman's soul with all its love and sorrow had subtly transformed it, adding the one only grace it needed to make it simply peerless. At last-- "You are not Irene," gasped Bertha, "she is dead!"