The young girl was trembling with nervous excitement, and a feeling of hot anger, a sense of deep injustice burned within her.

This startling discovery—­for she was convinced that there could be but one Mrs. Richmond Montague—­stirred her soul to its lowest depths.  She felt a strange dread of this woman; a feeling almost of horror and aversion made her sink from contact with her; and yet, at the same time, she experienced an unaccountable curiosity to see and know something of her.  There was a spice of romance about the situation which prompted her, in spite of her first impulse to flee from the house—­to stay and study this gay woman of the world, who was so strangely connected with her own life.

She could leave at any time, she told herself, should the position prove to be an uncongenial one; but since she had chosen the vocation of a seamstress, she might as well sew for Mrs. Richmond Montague as any one else; while possibly she might be able to learn something more regarding her mother’s history than she already knew.  She felt sure that her uncle had kept something back from her, and she so longed to have the mystery fully explained.

But, of course, if she remained, it would never do for her to give her own name, for this woman would suspect her identity at once, and probably drive her out into the world again.  It was not probable that she would knowingly tolerate the child of a rival in her home.

Mona was glad now that she had not told Mary her name, as she had once been on the point of doing.

“What shall I call myself?” she mused.  “I do not dare to use Uncle Walter’s name, for that would betray me as readily as my own; even Mona, being such an uncommon name, would also make her suspect me.  There is my middle name, Ruth, and my father was called Richmond—­suppose I call myself Ruth Richards?”

This rather pleased her, and she decided to use it.  But she was strangely nervous about meeting Mrs. Montague, and several times she was tempted to send Mary for a carriage and flee to Mr. Graves’s hospitable home, and start out from there to seek some other position.

Once she did rise to call her.  “I cannot stay,” she said.  “I must go.”  But just then she heard voices in the hall below, and, believing that Mrs. Montague had returned, she turned back and sat down again with a sinking heart, assured that her resolve had come too late.

At six o’clock she went down to the basement, where she had been told dinner would be served, and where she found no one save Mary and Sarah, the cook, who proved to be a good-natured woman of about thirty-five years, and who at once manifested a motherly interest in the pretty and youthful seamstress.

Mary informed her, during the meal, that Mrs. Montague was going out that evening to a grand reception, and had sent word that she could not see her until the next morning; but that she would find some sheets and pillow slips in the sewing room, which she could begin to work upon after breakfast, and she would lay out other work for her later.