back and forth between the picture he held in his hands and the face of
the beautiful girl before him.

Mona looked a trifle surprised--she could not understand what was "queer"
in the fact that she was Walter Dinsmore's niece.

"I suppose," resumed Mr. Corbin, after another season of reflection,
during which he looked both grave and perplexed, "that you have the
_proofs_ of all that you claim? You can prove that you are the daughter
of Mona Forester and--Richmond Montague?"

Again Mona blushed, and hot tears of grief and shame rushed to her eyes,
as, all at once, it flashed into her mind that her errand there would be
a fruitless one, for she was utterly powerless to prove anything, while
the peculiar emphasis which Mr. Corbin had almost unconsciously used in
speaking of her father made her very uncomfortable. She had hoped to
learn more than she had to reveal, and that her strong resemblance to her
mother's picture would be sufficient to prove the relationship between
them; but now she began to fear that it would not.

"What proofs do I need?" she asked, in a voice that was not quite steady.

"The marriage certificate of the contracting parties, or some witness of
the ceremony, besides some reliable person who can identify you as their
child," was the business-like response.

"Then I can prove nothing," Mona said, in a weary tone, "for I have no
certificate, no letters, not even a scrap of writing penned by either my
father or my mother."