_"There, now, be rational" cried the young girl_

_Her lips were parted, her pose, grace itself_

"_Promise me you will take a long rest_"

"_So you imagine I shall soon be making love to another girl?_"




CHAPTER I

A CRESCENT OF A GIRL


When Madge Alden was seventeen years of age an event occurred which
promised to be the misfortune of her life. At first she was almost
overwhelmed and knew not what to do. She was but a young and
inexperienced girl, and for a year or more had been regarded as an
invalid.

Madge Alden was an orphan. Four years prior to the opening of our
story she had lost her mother, her surviving parent, and since had
resided with her elder sister Mary, who was several years her
senior, and had married Henry Muir, a merchant of New York City. This
gentleman had cordially united with his wife in offering Madge a home,
and his manner toward the young girl, as far as his absorbed and busy
life permitted, had been almost paternal. He was a quiet, reticent
man, who had apparently concentrated every faculty of soul and body on