the room, and she did not notice the paleness which overspread
Lenora's face at the words which the beggar uttered when, she
presented the money to him. She caught, however, the low murmur of
their voices, as they spoke together for a moment, and as Lenora
accompanied him to the door, she distinctly heard the words, "In the
garden."

"And maybe that's some of your kin; you look like him," said she to
Lenora, after the stranger was gone.

"That's my business, not yours," answered Lenora, as she left the
kitchen and repaired to her mother's room.

"Lenora, what ails you?" said Mrs. Hamilton to her daughter at the
tea-table that night, when, after putting salt in one cup of tea, and
upsetting a second, she commenced spreading her biscuit with cheese
instead of butter. "What ails you? What are you thinking about? You
don't seem to know any more what you are doing than the dead."

Lenora made no direct reply to this, but soon after she said, "Mother,
how long has father been dead--my own father I mean?"

"Two or three years, I don't exactly know which," returned her mother,
and Lenora continued:

"How did he look? I hardly remember him."

"You have asked me that fifty times," answered her mother, "and fifty
times I have told you that he looked like you, only worse, if
possible."