something like Sanford; so it did, but between the "something like" and identity was a sufficiently wide margin.

She gave up the perplexing study, and rose with a dawning triumph in her eyes. "You will leave me this letter?" she asked. "It will be wanted in evidence. Rick and I shall set out for New Orleans to-morrow."

I assented.

"And Rick," she went on, as if unable to suppress her growing exultation,-"Rick will have his rights, at last! He ought to have had them before, but it is not yet too late. He has not yet learned to have a will distinct from his mother's."

She thought only of Rick-Carrie was forgotten! Or, it might be truer to say, she thought only of herself. In Rick's good fortune she saw but her own elevation to wealth, position, power. What an utter dislike I felt for her, as I listened! And Mala told me decidedly that, however glad she might be for Carrie's, or even for Rick's sake, she should have chosen to be the bearer of such tidings to anybody on earth rather than Mrs. Thorne. To which Bona replied, quietly, that that was, perhaps, the very reason why I had been selected for the office.

"Read that!" continued Mrs. Thorne, possessed by the restless, garrulous spirit of excitement, and thrusting an open letter into my hand, "read that, and see what I have had to endure so long! Mr. Paul Venner will write me no more such letters, I fancy!".

I glanced at it mechanically, intending to push it aside, and remained staring at the open page in amazement. I forget the contents,- -a curt intimation that Rick's expenses must be diminished, I think,—but the handwriting was totally unknown to me-not a familiar line nor letter in it anywhere. I could not help saying:

"This is not Paul Venner's writing-it must be that of some clerk.".

"It is his, unquestionably," she replied, bitterly. “I

have good reason to know it well. It first made me acquainted with the fact that, instead of being left with a comfortable support, I had almost nothing; and I have often watched Mr. Venner write while he was drawing up papers for me to sign."

I went home bewildered. Is Paul Venner so altered, then, that even his handwriting partakes of the change? But what is it to me?

It is curious to note how quickly, when one link of the solution of a mystery is found, others start up to complete the chain. Near the church, I met the artist. Something moved me to tell him the strange story to which I had been listening.

"What did you say was the nurse's name?" he asked, when I had done.

"Paola Valpino."

"Then I can tell you just where she is to be found. Doubtless, her deposition will have to be obtained. She left La Pizzo years ago, and, on account of some family difficulties, took good care to leave no trace behind her. She had charge of the house in the Via del at Rome, where I had my studio; and she once told me this very story, that is to say, what she knew of it."

My report elicited not a few exclamations of wonder, on my return home. Mrs. Divine stared at me alternately over and under her spectacles, as it went on; and did not bethink herself that it would be easier to take them off, until it was finished. Then she remarked:

:

"Well! I certainly didn't think that Priscilla was about any special business of the Lord's, when she went to cleaning that garret! And if I hadn't taken it into my head to show you Horace's curiosities, that letter might have lain there another fifteen year! I'll never think anything is of no consequence again !”

"Umph!" said Mrs. Prescott, drily, "the next time the

Lord sets us to find anybody's fortune in our garret, I hope it'll be our own!"

"Fortune," observed Uncle True, "is a word I ain't partial to. It's so apt to get a 'mis' tacked on to the fust end on't afore you know it! If the Lord ever uses it— which I doubt,-I'm sartin He never applies it to houses, nor lands, nor bank-stock. I reckon your an' my fortunes, Priscilly, 'll never be found in the garret, unless we take to keepin' our Bibles an' sayin' our prayers thar!

That afternoon, I sent the address of Paola Valpino, so unexpectedly obtained from the artist, to Mrs. Thorne; and felt that my part in the affair was ended.

XXXIV.

DAISY,

N the following day Mrs. Thorne left for New Orleans. I told myself frankly that I was glad she had gone. There are some natures the association with which tends inevitably to debasement,-a lowering of the moral tone, and a darkening or obliquation of the moral vision. It must be a strong mind, a

tenacious idiosyncrasy, a most alert and unyielding will, that can long endure their contact without deterioration. I had learned to dread Mrs. Thorne's. There was some dull, remote chord in my heart that seldom failed to acknowledge the subtle power of her influence, by giving forth a harsh and discordant sound. I breathed freer therefore, in knowing that influence would be felt no more. The temporary twisting of our life-threads was over; hereafter each would be spun separately to its end. She would not return to Shiloh until after my departure; or she would only come to gather up such of her personal effects as were worthy of transferring to another and a different sphere.

Four or five days afterward, Mr. Divine having kindly placed the "woman-horse" (the current phrase for an animal suited to feminine use), and the small top-buggy (a recent purchase), at my disposal, I set forth alone, purposing to call upon Mrs. Danforth, shop a little at Clay Corner, and visit the railway station in search of a package of. music, etc., to be sent me by express.

Mrs. Danforth came first in order. After we had discussed various affairs of the Sewing Society, and arranged for a full report of its acts,-to be read at the next meeting, as the speediest and most effectual way of causing certain grumblers to regale themselves in the fashion known as "eating one's own words,”—the stream of her talk began to eddy around various points of personal or family history, of no special interest to me. I waited absently, therefore, for a gap in the narrative through which I might civilly take my leave, when a name, carelessly tossed upon its sur face, caught my attention.

“I beg your pardon, but of whom were you just now speaking?"

"Of Chester Danforth, my husband's brother."

A fac-simile of that illegible name in Captain Hart's manuscript, stereotyped on my memory by a long process of patient study, instantly rose before me. DanforthChester Danforth! certainly; how blind I was not to have seen it before!

"Do you know if he was ever in the south of Italy?" I asked.

"To be sure he was, as we have sorrowful cause to remember. He lost his only child there by the malarial fever."

"Ah, indeed! how very sad!" returned I, mechanically, too intent upon my own train of thought to give much heed or sympathy to the event. "Did you ever hear of his having taken an orphan girl under his charge at La Pizzo!"

"Why, yes, of course. It was Pearl-more's the pity!"

"And she died soon after at Sondrio ?"

"Died! good gracious, no! She is very much aliverather too much so, all things considered!"

My surprise verged upon incredulity. "Do I under, stand you to say," I asked, with very distinct and deliber