She came on up the stairs, went into the sitting-room--the room where Doctor Stevens seventeen years before had torn the baby Susan from the very claws of death.

She flung herself down, buried her head in her arms upon that same table.

She burst into a storm of tears.
"Why, dearie dear," cried her mother, "whatever is the matter ?" "It's wicked and hateful," sobbed the girl, "but---- Oh, mamma, I _hate_ Susan! She was along, and Sam hardly noticed me, and he's coming here this evening to call." "But you'll be at Sinclairs'!" exclaimed Mrs.Warham.
"Not Susan," sobbed Ruth.

"He wants to see only her." The members of the Second Presbyterian Church, of which Fanny Warham was about the most exemplary and assiduous female member, would hardly have recognized the face encircled by that triple row of curl-papered locks, shinily plastered with quince-seed liquor.

She was at woman's second critical age, and the strange emotions working in her mind--of whose disorder no one had an inkling--were upon the surface now.