Asenath’s purple silk was deluged with the water, and her temper was considerably ruffled as she exclaimed:  “You see the mischief he has done, and it was cut glass, too.  I hope you’ll deduct it from her wages!”

“Asenath,” and Anna’s voice betrayed her astonishment that her sister should speak so in Adah’s presence.

She had hurried out at Asenath’s alarm, but the latter did not at first observe her, and when she did, she was actually startled into an apology for her speech.

“I’m sorry Willie was so careless.  I’ll pay for the goblet cheerfully,” Adah said, not to Asenath, but to Anna, who answered kindly:  “No matter; it was already cracked across the bottom—­don’t mind.”

But Adah did mind; and once alone in her room, her tears fell in torrents.  She had heard the whole about Willie’s mischief, heard of the buds torn to pieces, and of the hole kicked in the carpet.  She would like to see that hole, and after Willie was asleep, she stole down to the reception-room to see the damage for herself.  She found the hole, or what was intended for it, smiling as she examined the few loose threads; and then she hunted for the stool, finding it under the curtain where Eudora had placed it, and finding, too, that letter dropped by Jim.  The others were gone, appropriated by Mrs. Richards, who always watched for the western mail and looked it over herself.

  MISS ANNIE RICHARDS,
  SNOWDOWN,
  MASS.

That was the direction, and the envelope was faced with black.  Adah noticed this, together with the heavy seal of wax stamped with an initial; and she was taking the lost epistle to its rightful owner when Mrs. Richards met her, asking what she had.

“I found this beneath the curtain,” Adah replied.  “It’s for Miss Anna; I’ll take it to her, shall I?”

“Yes, yes—­yes, yes; for Anna,” and madam snatched eagerly at that letter from Charlie Millbrook.

Soon recovering herself, she said naturally:  “I’ll take it myself.  Say, girl, what is your name, now that you are to work here?  You won’t mind righting up the parlors, I presume—­sweeping and dusting them, before you go upstairs again?”

It was new business for Adah, sweeping parlors as a servant, but she did it without a murmur; and then, when her task was completed, stopped for a moment by a window, and looked out upon the town, wondering where Alice Johnson’s home had been.  The house where she once lived would seem like an old friend, she thought, just as Pamelia came in and joined her.  At the same moment Adah’s eye caught the cottage by the river, and her heart beat rapidly, for that seemed to answer Alice’s description of her Snowdon home.

“Whose pretty place is that?” she asked, pointing it out to Pamelia, who replied: