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so nag Taam ae SO Whe en ale i CRIM ETN ea
v
20 A DREADFUL TEMPTATION,
punish Howard Templeton, I shall strike swiftly and
surely.” . mo .
Her aunt arose, gathering her silken wrappings about
her tall, elegant form:
‘* Well, I must go now,” she said. ‘‘I see it is of no use
talking to you.’ Come and see me when you feel better,
Xenie.”
‘‘T am going to the country next week,” said her niece,
abruptly.
“Indeed? Has not your mother been up to see you in
your trouble?” inquired Mrs. Egerton, pausing in her grace-
ful exit.
‘No. I wrote to’her, but she has neither come nor writ-
ten. I fear something has happened. She is usually very
punctual. Anyway, I shall go down next week and stay
with them a week or two.”
‘‘T hope the change may improve your spirits, love,” said
her aunt, kissing her and going out with an airy ‘Aw
revoir,”
CHAPTER VIL
‘*Mauaza, how pale and troubled you lock. What ails
you?” ; , .
Mrs. St. Jobn- was crossing the threshold of the little cot-
tage home that looked, oh, so poor and cheap after the
stately brown-stone palace she had left that morning, and
after one quick glance into her mother’s enreworn face she
‘saw that new lines of grief and trouble had come upon it
since last they had met.
‘Come up into my room, Xenie. I have much to say
to you,” said her mother, leading the way up the narrow -
stairway into her bedrvom, a neat and scrupulously clean
little room, but plainly and almost poorly furnished. —
Mrs. Carroll was a widow with only a few barren acresof
land, which she hired a man to till. ‘Her husband was long
since dead, and the burden of rearing her two children had
been a heavy one to the lonely widow, who came of a good
family and naturally desired to do well by her two daugh-
ters, both of them being gifted with uncommon beauty.
But poverty had hampered and crushed her desires, and
made her an old woman while yet she was in the prime of
life. Do
Xenie removed her traveling wraps and sat down before
the little toilet glass to arrange her disordered hair
My dear, how pale and. sad you look in your widow's
weeds,” said Mrs. Carroll, regarding her attentively.‘
was very sorry to hear of your husband’sdeath. Itis very
sad to be left a widow so young—barely twenty.”
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