"She is not the woman she used to be," returned Mrs. Reeves. "She is very much changed, and they say that during the last year of her sojourn in London she spent her time in distributing tracts among the poor, and all that sort of thing. I wonder what she wants of Mr. Marshall. Wasn't it queer the way she introduced herself to him?"
"Very," Mrs. Bartow said; but she thought, "not strange at all," and she was half tempted to tell her friend the relationship existing between the two.
This she would perhaps have done had not Mrs. Reeves at that moment directed her attention to William and Jessie, saying of the former that he seemed very unhappy.
"The fact is," she whispered, confidentially, "he never appears at ease unless he is somewhere near Charlotte. I think he monopolizes her altogether too much. I tell her so too. But she only laughs, and says he don't go with her any more than with Jessie Graham, though everybody knows he does. He likes Jessie, of course, but Charlotte is his first choice," and the old lady glanced complacently toward the spot where her sprightly granddaughter stood surrounded by a knot of admirers, each of whom had an eye to her father's coffers as well as to herself.
"The wretch!" thought Mrs. Bartow. "Just as though William preferred that great, long-necked thing to Jessie; but I'll be even with her yet. I'll be revenged when Mrs. Bellenger comes back," and the fan moved rapidly as Mrs. Bartow thought how crest-fallen her dear friend would be when she said what she meant to say to her.
Meantime Mrs. Bellenger had led Walter to a little ante-room where they would be comparatively free from observation, and sitting down upon an ottoman, she bade him, too, be seated. He complied with her request, and then waited for her to speak, wondering much who she was, and why she had sought this interview with him. As Mrs. Reeves had said, Mrs. Bellenger had for the last ten years resided in different parts of Europe. She had gone there with her husband and only surviving daughter, both of whom she had buried, one among the Grampian Hills, and the other upon the banks of the blue Rhine. Her youngest son, who was still unmarried, had joined her there, but he had become dissipated, and eighteen months before her return to America she had lain him in a drunkard's grave. With a breaking heart she returned to her lonely home in London, dating from that hour the commencement of another and better life, and now there was not in the whole world an humbler or more consistent Christian than the once haughty Mrs. Bellenger. Many and many a time, when away over the sea, had her thoughts gone back to her youngest born, the gentle brown-eyed Ellen, whom she had disowned because the man she chose was poor, and in bitterness of heart she had cried: