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30 A DREADFUL TEMPTATION.
CHAPTER X.
Tue door swung slowly open, and the gray-haired old,
servitor whom Howard could remember from childhood, |
tool his card and disappeared down the hallway. Bo
Presently he returned, and informed the young man that
the ladies would receive him; and Howard, half regretting,
when too late, the hasty impulse that had prompted him
enter, was ushered into the drawing-room, ‘
The next moment he fonnd himself returning a stiff, icy |
bow from his uncle’s widow, a half-embarrassed. greeting
from Mrs. Carroll, and shaking hands with the beautiful .
Lora, who gave him ashy yet perfectly self-possessed wel- —
come, and referred to his visit to the country two years be-
fore ina pretty, naive way, showing that she remembered.
him perfectly; although, as she averred, she was little =
more than a child at the time. :
They sat down, and he and Miss Carroll had the talk |
mostly to themselves, though now and then his glance. a
strayed from her bright, vivacious countenance to the sad,
' white face of the young widow sitting beside her motheroyv
the sofa, the dark lashes shading her colorless cheeks,.a -:
sorrowful droop about her beautiful lips as if her thoughts —
dwelt on some mournful theme. an
Howard_had heard people say that she looked ill and —
ale since Mr. St. John’s death, and that after all she must
1ave cared for him a little. OE
He knew better than that, of course, yet hecould not but
acknowledge that she played the part of a bereaved wife to
perfection.
- *“Tt looks like real grief,” he said to. himself; ‘but, of.
course, I know that if is the loss of the money and’ not
the man that weighs her spirits down so heavily.”
““You resemble your sister very much, Miss Carroll,” he - ot
said to Lora, after alittle while. ‘‘If I were an Irishman,
I should say that you look more like your sister than you. —
do we yourself.” ae
he careless, yet odd little speech seemed to have an in-
explicable effect upon Lora Carroll. She. started violently
her cheeks lost their soft, pink color, the bright smile faded:
from her lips, and she gave the speaker a keen, half-furtive a!
glance from under her dark-fringed eyelashes. - we
She tried to laugh, but it sounded foreed and unnatural.
Mrs. Carrol, who had been silently listening, broke in
carelessly before Lora could speak: ac ae :
“Ves, indeed, Lora and Xenie are exceedingly like each _
other, Mr. Templeton. Their aunt, Miva Heerbow saye that
Lora is now the living image of Xenie, when she first came . on
to the city, two years ago.”