Then as her own eyes chanced to fall upon the vases, she brought one of them to Mary, saying, "See, these are for you,--a present from one, who bade me present them with his compliments to the little girl who nursed him on board the Windermere, and who cried because he called her ugly!" Mary's heart was almost audible in its beatings, and her cheeks took the hue of the cushions on which she reclined.

Returning the vase to the mantel-piece, Ida came back to her side, and bending closer to her face, whispered, "Cousin George told me of you years ago when he first came here, but I forgot all about it, and when we were at Mount Holyoke, I never suspected that you were the little girl he used to talk so much about.

But a few days before he went away he reminded me of it again, and then I understood why he was so much interested in you.

I wonder you never told me you knew him, for of course you like him.

You can't help it." Mary only heard a part of what Ida said.