advice, and the next time Mr. Hamilton called, she laughingly told the
story which Lenora had set afloat, saying, by way of excuse, that the
dear girl did not like to hear her mother joked on the subject of
matrimony, and had turned the attention of people another way.

Mr. Hamilton hardly relished this, and half wished, mayhap, as,
indeed, gentlemen generally do in similar circumstances, that the
little "objection" in the shape of Lenora had never had existence, or
at least had never called the widow mother!




CHAPTER VII.

THE STEPMOTHER.


Rapidly the summer was passing away, and as autumn drew near the wise
gossips of Glenwood began to whisper that the lady from the East was
in danger of being supplanted in her rights by the widow, whose house
Mr. Hamilton was known to visit two or three times each week. But
Lenora had always some plausible story on hand. "Mother and the lady
had been so intimate--in fact, more than once rocked in the same
cradle--and 'twas no wonder Mr. Hamilton came often to a place where
he could hear so much about her."

So when business again took Mr. Hamilton to Albany suspicion was
wholly lulled, and Walter, on his return from college, was told by Mag
that her fears concerning Mrs. Carter were groundless. During the