not come out according to Mrs. Dinneford's programme. There was a
highest bidder; but when he came for his slave, she was not to be
found.

Well, the story is trite and brief--the old sad story. Among her
suitors was a young man named Granger, and to him Edith gave her
heart. But the mother rejected him with anger and scorn. He was not
rich, though belonging to a family of high character, and so fell
far below her requirements. Under a pressure that almost drove the
girl to despair, she gave her consent to a marriage that looked more
terrible than death. A month before the time fixed for, its
consummation, she barred the contract by a secret union with
Granger.

Edith knew her mother's character too well to hope for any
reconciliation, so far as Mr. Granger was concerned. Coming in as he
had done between her and the consummation of her highest ambition,
she could never feel toward him anything but the most bitter hatred;
and so, after remaining at home for about a week after her secret
marriage, she wrote this brief letter to her mother and went away:

"My DEAR MOTHER: I do not love Spencer Wray, and would rather die
than marry him, and so I have made the marriage to which my heart
has never consented, an impossibility. You have left me no other
alternative but this. I am the wife of George Granger, and go to
cast my lot with his.

"Your loving daughter,

"EDITH."