"But mine is so different," he said. "There are no silk curtains
there, no carpets such as this--"
"Is Maude Remington there?" the lady asked, and in her large black
eyes there was a dewy tenderness, as she pronounced that name.
"Maude Remington!--yes," the doctor answered." Where did you hear of
her? My sister told you, I suppose. Yes, Maude is there. She has
lived with me ever since her mother died. You would have liked
Matty, I think," and the doctor felt a glow of satisfaction in
having thus paid a tribute to the memory of his wife.
"Is Maude like her mother?" the lady asked; a glow upon her cheek,
and the expression of her face evincing the interest she felt in the
answer.
"Not at all," returned the doctor. "Matty was blue-eyed and fair,
while Maude is dark, and resembles her father, they say."
The white jeweled hands were clasped together, for a moment, and
then Maude Glendower questioned him of the other one, Matty's child
and his. Very tenderly the doctor talked of his unfortunate boy,
telling of his soft brown hair, his angel face, and dreamy eyes.
"He is like Matty," the lady said, more to herself than her
companion, who proceeded to speak of Nellie as a paragon of
loveliness and virtue. "I shan't like her, I know," the lady
thought, "but the other two," how her heart bounded at the thoughts
of folding them to her bosom.
Louis Kennedy, weeping that his mother was forgotten, had nothing to
fear from Maude Glendower, for a child of Matty Remington was a
sacred trust to her, and when as the doctor bade her good-night he
said again, "You will find a great contrast between your home and
mine," she answered, "I shall be contented if Maude and Louis are
there."
"And Nellie, too," the doctor added, unwilling that she should be
overlooked.
"Yes, Nellie too," the lady answered, the expression of her mouth
indicating that Nellie too was an object of indifference to her.
The doctor is gone, his object is accomplished, and at the Mansion
House near by he sleeps quietly and well. But the lady, Maude
Glendower, oh, who shall tell what bitter tears she wept, or how in
her in-most soul she shrank from the man she had chosen. And yet
there was nothing repulsive in him, she knew. He was fine-looking,--
he stood well in the world,--he was rich while she was poor. But not
for this alone had she promised to be his wife. To hold Maude
Remington within her arms, to look into her eyes, to call his
daughter child, this was the strongest reason of them all. And was
it strange that when at last she slept she was a girl again, looking
across the college green to catch a glimpse of one whose
indifference had made her what she was, a selfish, scheming, cold-
hearted woman.