"Ada Harcourt!" said she, and Ada, blushing scarlet, began: "I have brought--" but she was interrupted by St. Leon, who handed Lucy the bundle, saying:

"Here is your work, Miss Dayton, and I hope it will suit you, for we took a great deal of pains with it."

Lucy tried to smile as she took the work, and then opening the parlor door she with one hand motioned St. Leon to enter, while with the other she held the hall door ajar, as if for Ada to depart. A tear trembled on Ada's long eyelashes, as she timidly asked;

"Can I see your grandmother?"

"Mrs. Dayton, I presume you mean," said Lucy haughtily.

Ada bowed and Lucy continued: "She is not at home just at present."

"Perhaps, then, you can pay me for the work," said Ada.

The scowl on Lucy's face grew darker as she replied, "I have nothing to do with grandma's hired help. Come to-morrow and she will be here.

How horridly cold this open door makes the hall!"

Ada thought of the empty cupboard at home, and of her pale, sick mother. Love for her conquered all other feeling, and in a choking voice she said, "Oh, Miss Dayton, if you will pay it you will confer a great favor on me, for mother is sick, and we need it so much!"

There was a movement in the parlor. St. Leon was approaching, and with an impatient gesture Lucy opened the opposite door, saying to Ada, "Come in here."

The tone was so angry that, under any other circumstances, Ada would have gone away. Now, however, she entered, and Lucy, taking out her purse, said, "How much is the sum about which you make so much fuss?"

"Two dollars and a half," answered Ada.

"Two dollars and a half," repeated Lucy, and then, as a tear fell from Ada's eye, she added contemptuously, "It is a small amount to cry about."

Ada made no reply, and was about leaving the room when Lucy detained her, by saying, "Pray, did you ask Mr. St. Leon to accompany you here and bring your bundle?"

"Miss Dayton, you know better--you know I did not," answered Ada, as the fire of insulted pride flashed from her dark blue eyes, which became almost black, while her cheek grew pale as marble.

Instantly Lucy's manner changed, and in a softened tone she said, "I am glad to know that you did not; and now, as a friend, I warn you against receiving any marks of favor from St. Leon."

"What do you mean?" asked Ada, and Lucy continued:

"You have sense enough to know that when a man of St. Leon's standing shows any preference for a girl in your circumstances it can be from no good design."

"You judge him wrongfully--you do not know him," said Ada; and Lucy answered:

"Pray, where did you learn so much about him?"

Ada only answered by rising to go.

"Here, this way," said Lucy, and leading her through an enter passage to the back door, she added, "I do it to save your good name. St.

Leon is undoubtedly waiting for you, and I would not trust my own sister with him, were she a poor sewing girl!"

The door was shut in Ada's face, and Lucy returned to the parlor, where she found her father entertaining her visitor. Seating herself on a crimson ottoman, she prepared to do the agreeable, when St. Leon, rising, said, "Excuse my short call, for I must be going. Where have you left Miss Harcourt?"

"I left her at the door," answered Lucy, "and she is probably halfway to 'Dirt Alley' by this time, so do not be in haste."

But he was in haste, for when he looked on the fast-gathering darkness without, and thought of the by streets and lonely alleys through which Ada must pass on her way home, he felt uneasy, and biding Miss Dayton good night, he hurried away.

Meantime, Ada had procured the articles she wished for, and proceeded home, with a heart which would have been light as a bird had not the remembrance of Lucy's insulting language rung in her ears. Mrs.

Harcourt saw that all was not right, but she forbore making any inquiries until supper was over. Then Ada, bringing a stool to her mother's side, and laying her head on her lap, told everything which had transpired between herself, St. Leon, and Lucy.

Scarcely was her story finished when there was a rap at the door, and St. Leon himself entered the room. He had failed in overtaking Ada, and anxious to know of her safe return, had determined to call. The recognition between himself and Mrs. Harcourt was mutual, but for reasons of their own, neither chose to make it apparent, and Ada introduced him to her mother as she would have done any stranger. St.

Leon possessed in an unusual degree the art of making himself agreeable, and in the animated conversation which ensued Mrs. Harcourt forgot that she was poor--forgot her aching eyes; while Ada forgot everything save that St, Leon was present, and that she was again listening to his voice, which charmed her now even more than in the olden time.

During the evening St. Leon managed in various ways to draw Ada out on all the prominent topics of the day, and he felt pleased to find that amid all her poverty she did not neglect the cultivation of her mind.

A part of each day was devoted to study, which Mrs. Harcourt, who was a fine scholar, superintended.

It was fast merging toward the hour when phantoms walk abroad ere St.

Leon remembered that he must go. As he was leaving he said to Ada, "I have a niece, Jenny, about your age, whom I think you would like very much."

Oh, how Ada longed to ask for her old playmate, but a look from her mother kept her silent, and in a moment St. Leon was gone.

CHAPTER VIII.

COUSIN BERINTHA AND LUCY'S PARTY.

Cousin Berintha, whom Lucy Dayton so much disliked and dreaded, was a cousin of Mr. Dayton, and was a prim, matter-of-fact maiden of fifty, or thereabout. That she was still in a state of single blessedness was partially her own fault, for at twenty she was engaged to the son of a wealthy farmer who lived near her father. But, alas! ere the wedding day arrived, there came to the neighborhood a young lady from Boston, in whose presence the beauty of the country girl grew dim, as do the stars in the rays of the morning sun.

Berintha had a plain face, but a strong heart, and when she saw that Amy Holbrook was preferred, with steady hand and unflinching nerve, she wrote to her recreant lover that he was free. And now Amy, to whom the false knight turned, took it into her capricious head that she would not marry a farmer--she had always fancied a physician; and if young B---- would win her, he must first secure the title of M.D. He complied with her request, and one week from the day on which he received his diploma Berintha read, with a slightly blanched cheek, the notice of his marriage with the Boston beauty. Three years from that day she read the announcement of Amy's death, and in two years more she refused the doctor's offer to give her a home by his lonely fireside, and a place in his widowed heart. All this had the effect of making Berintha rather cross, but she seldom manifested her spite toward any one except Lucy, whom she seemed to take peculiar delight in teasing, and whose treatment of herself was not such as would warrant much kindness in return.

Lizzie she had always loved, and when Harry Graham went away it was on Berintha's lap that the young girl sobbed out her grief, wondering, when with her tears Berintha's were mingled, how one apparently so cold and passionless could sympathize with her. To no one had Berintha ever confided the story of her early love. Mr. Dayton was a schoolboy then, and as but little was said of it at the time, it faded entirely from memory; and when Lucy called her a "crabbed old maid," she knew not of the disappointment which had clouded every joy and imbittered a whole lifetime.

At the first intelligence of Lizzie's illness Berintha came, and though her prescriptions of every kind of herb tea in the known world were rather numerous, and her doses of the same were rather large, and though her stiff cap, sharp nose, and curious little eyes, which saw everything, were exceedingly annoying to Lucy, she proved herself an invaluable nurse, warming up old Dr. Benton's heart into a glow of admiration of her wonderful skill! Hour after hour she sat by Lizzie, bathing her burning brow, or smoothing her tumbled pillow. Night after night she kept her tireless watch, treading softly around the sick-room, and lowering her loud, harsh voice to a whisper, lest she should disturb the uneasy slumbers of the sick girl, who, under her skilful nursing, gradually grew better.

"Was there ever such a dear, good cousin," said Lizzie, one day, when a nervous headache had been coaxed away by what Berintha called her "mesmeric passes;" and "Was there ever such a horrid bore," said Lucy, on the same day, when Cousin Berintha "thought she saw a white hair in Lucy's raven curls!" adding, by way of consolation, "It wouldn't be anything strange, for I began to grow gray before I was as old as you."

"And that accounts tor your head being just the color of wool,"

angrily retorted Lucy, little dreaming of the bitter tears and sleepless nights which had early blanched her cousin's hair to its present whiteness.

For several winters Lucy had been in the habit of giving a large party, and as she had heard that St. Leon was soon going South, she felt anxious to have it take place ere he left town. But what should she do with Berintha, who showed no indications of leaving, though Lizzie was much better?

"I declare," said she to herself, "that woman is enough to worry the life out of me. I'll speak to Liz about it this very day."

Accordingly, that afternoon, when alone with her sister, she said, "Lizzie, is it absolutely necessary that Berintha should stay here any longer, to tuck you up, and feed you sage tea through a straw?"

Lizzie looked inquiringly at her sister, who continued: "To tell you the truth, I'm tired of having her around, and must manage some way to get rid of her before next week, for I mean to have a party Thursday night."

Lizzie's eyes now opened in astonishment, as she exclaimed, "A party!

oh, Lucy, wait until I get well."

"You'll be able by that time to come down-stairs in your crimson morning-gown, which becomes you so well," answered Lucy.