Gabrielle, she walked so very slowly, and was
so pale.

"This is the house, sister. We go through
the kitchen; she has the room above."

They raised the latch and went in. No
one was in the lower room; so they passed
through, and ascended a low narrow staircase,
almost like a ladder, which rose abruptly
from a doorway at the farther side, until they
reached another door which stood facing
them, without any landing between it and
the highest step. Gabrielle knocked, and a
faint voice from within answered, "Come
in;" and she entered, followed by her sister.
It was a very small room, and very bare of
furniture; for there was little in it but a
deal bedstead, an old table, and one or two
odd ricketty chairs, in one of which—that
boasted of a pair of broken arms and something
that had once been a cushion—sat the
woman they had come to visit.

Gabrielle went quickly up to her, and
taking her hand said in a low voice:

"I have brought my sister, as I promised—
my eldest sister."

The woman bowed her head without speaking;
then tried to rise from her seat, but she
seemed very weak, and her hand trembled as
she leaned on the arm of her chair.

"Do not rise, my good woman," Miss
Vaux said, kindly, and her voice sounded
almost soft—she was so used to attune it so
as to be in harmony with a sick chamber—
"do not rise; I see you are very weak," and
she drew a chair near, and sat down by her
side.

"You have come quite lately to the village,
my sister tells me?"

"Quite lately, less than a week ago," was
the answer; but spoken in so low a voice
that the words were scarcely audible.

"Were you ever here before? Have you
any connection with the place? " Miss Vaux
asked.

"No, none."

"But you had probably some motive in
coming here? Have you no relations or
friends?"

"No, no," the woman cried, suddenly
bursting into tears, "I have no friends,
no friends in the wide world!"

A gentle hand was laid on her shoulder;
a gentle voice whispered some soft words in
her ear, and the woman looked up into
Gabrielle's dark eyes, and murmured something
between her sobs. Then they were all
silent for a few moments.

"I think you are a widow?" Miss Vaux
asked, gently, when she had become calmer.

"Yes," she answered, slowly, as though
the word had been dragged from her, so
much it seemed to pain her to speak it.

"And have you any children?"

A moment's pause, and then another "yes,"
hardly intelligible from the choking sob
which accompanied it.

Miss Vaux was silent, looking inquiringly
into the woman's face. It was partly turned
from her, partly shaded with her thin hand;
her large eyes looking up with a strange
agonized look into Gabrielle's eyes, her pale
lips moving convulsively. Gabrielle's face
was almost as pale as hers: her look almost
as full of agony.

Miss Vaux glanced from one to the other,
at first with pity; then suddenly a quick
change came over her face; a deep flush
mounted to her brow, she darted from her
seat; and, calm as she ordinarily was, her
whole figure trembled as she stood before
them, with her fierce gaze turned on them.

Pale as death, neither of them speaking,
they bore her passionate look; quite motionless
too, except that Gabrielle had instinctively
clasped the widow's hand in hers, and
held it tightly.

''Speak to me, Gabrielle!" Miss Vaux
cried; and her voice, harsh, loud, and quivering
with passion, echoed through the room;
"tell me who this woman is?"

From the widow's lips there burst one
word—one word like a sudden bitter cry—
"Joanna!"

She stretched out her arms imploringly,
trying to grasp even her daughter's dress; but
Miss Vaux sprang from her, and stood erect
in the centre of the room; her tall figure
drawn to its full height; her burning eye still
turned with unutterable anger upon the
crouching woman near her.

"You have dared to do this. You have
dared to seek us out here, where we had
hoped to hide ourselves from the scoffing of
the bitter, heartless world; where we had
tried by acts of charity, by suffering and
penance, to blot out the recollection of the
shame that you have brought upon us! Are
we nowhere secure from you? What have
we to do with you? You cast us off years
ago."

"Sister, sister!" cried Gabrielle's imploring
voice, "oh, remember, whatever she has done,
that she is still our mother. Have mercy on
her, for she cannot bear this!"

But sternly and coldly came Miss Vaux's
answer:—

"Did she remember that we were her
children when she left us ? Did she
remember that our father was her husband?
We all loved her then—she was very dear to
us—but she turned all our warm love into
bitterness. She destroyed our happiness at
one stroke, for ever; she blighted, without
a pang, all the hope of our young lives; she
branded us with a mark of shame that we can
never shake off: she plunged an arrow into
the heart of each of us, which lies festering
there now. Are these things to be forgiven?
I tell you it is impossible! I will never
forgive her—I swore it by my father's deathbed
—never while I live! Gabrielle, this is no
place for you. Come home with me!"

"Hear me first!" the mother cried, creeping:
from the seat in which she had sunk