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girl has ruined her good name and disgraced us all.’
A DREADFUL TEMPTATION. 21
“Yes,” answered Xenie, abstractedly; then she turned
around and said abruptly: ‘‘Mamma, where is my sis-
ter?”
Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment without
| replying.
‘* I have brought her some beautiful presents,” continued
Mrs. St. John, ‘tand you, too, dear mamma—things that
you will like—both beautiful and useful.”
-_Mrs. Carroll looked at her daughter a moment in utter
silence, and her lips quivered strangely.
Then she caught up a corner of .her homely check apron,
and hiding her convulsed face in its folds, she burst into
bitter weeping.
Xenie sprang up and threw her arms around the neck of
the agitated woman.
- “Oh, mamma,” she cried, anxiously; ‘‘ speak to me. Tell
~ me what ails you? Where is Lora?”
As if that name had power to open the flood-gates of
emotion wider, Mrs. Carroll wept more bitterly than ever.
_‘*Mamma, you frighten me,” cried Xenie, terrified. ‘‘ Oh,
tell me where is Lora? Is she dead?”
‘‘No, no—oh, better that she were?” sobbed her mother,
wildly.
Mrs. St. John grew as pale as death. She shook her
- mother almost rudely by the arm.
“What has Lora done?” she cried. ‘‘ Where isshe? I
will go and seek her.”
She was rushing wildly to the door, but Mrs. Carroll
sprang forward, and catching the skirt of her dress, pulled
her back. .
‘Not now!” she. gasped; ‘‘ wait alittle. That wretched
l ’
Mrs. St. John dropped into a chair like one bereft of life,
and her great, black eyes, dilated with terror, stared up into |
her mother’s face.
“Yes, itis too true,” said her mother, sitting down and
rocking herself back and forth, while low and heart-broken
moans escaped her white lips.
‘*But, mamma, poor, good, little Lora! it cannot be!
She was truth and innocence itself,” panted the young
widow, in a voice of anguish,
_ She deceived us all—she was a sly little piece. You will
see for yourself, Xenie. She lies ill in her chamber, and—
and in a few months there will be a”—she lowered her
‘voice and gave a fearful glance around her—“ a child!”
~**Oh! mamma, then she was married? Of course Lora
was married! Doesn’t she say so?” exclaimed Xenie, con-
fidently. .
‘*Oh, yes, she swears to a marriage—a secret one—but
~ £)
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