thing that I could possibly do without.  Having no occasion to go into society, for no one would recognize me as Eugenia Ballantine, I had paid little regard to my external appearance, so far as elegant and fashionable apparel was concerned.  I bought sparingly, and chose only plain and cheap articles.  My clothes were, therefore, not of a kind, as you may yourself see, to give me, so far as they were concerned, a passport to consideration.

“As two dollars a week would, I knew, in a very short time, exhaust my little stock of money, I determined to try and rent a room somewhere, at the lowest possible rate, and buy my own food.  I eat but a little, and felt sure that, by making this arrangement, I could subsist on one dollar a week instead of two, and this much it seemed as if I must be able to earn at something or other.  On the day after I formed this resolution I met, in my walks about the city for the purpose, with the room where you found me, for which I paid seventy-five cents a week.  There I removed, and managed to live on about one dollar and a quarter a week, which sum, or, at the worst, seventy-five cents or a dollar a week, I have since earned at making fine shirts for Mr. Berlaps at twenty-five cents each.  I could have done better than that, but every day I visit my father, and this occupies from two to three hours.”

“And how is your father?” asked Mrs. Gaston, wiping her tearful eyes, as Eugenia paused, on ending her narrative.

“He seems calmer, and much more serious and apparently thoughtful since he has been in this institution,” Eugenia replied, with something of cheerfulness in her tone.  “He does not greet my coming, as he did at first, with childish pleasure, but looks at me gravely, yet with tenderness, when I enter; and, when I go away, he always asks if I will ‘come again to-morrow.’  He did not do this at first.”

“But have you not written to Mr. Perkins since your return?” asked Mrs. Gaston.

Eugenia became instantly pale and agitated.  But recovering herself with an effort, she simply replied—­

“How could I?  To him I had, years before, been lost in the sea.  I could not exist in his mind, except as one in the world of spirits.  And how did when I came back, or how do I know now, that he has not found another to fill that place in his heart which I once occupied?  On this subject I dared make no inquiry.  And, even if this were not the case, I am not as I was.  I had fortune and social standing when he wooed and won me.  Now I am in comparative indigence, and branded as an impostor in my native city.  If none recognized and received us in our own home, how could I expect him to do so?  And to have been spurned as a mere pretender by him would have broken my heart at once.”

Eugenia was greatly moved by this allusion to her former lover and affianced husband.  The subject was one upon which she had never allowed herself to thinks except compulsorily, and but for a few moments at a time.  She could not bear it.  After a silence of some moments, Mrs. Gaston said—­