a dream. A charm seemed diffused over everything-she was transported above the earth to the hues of the rainbow.

Miss Horton, anxious to promote every opportunity for obtaining the private practice so strongly insisted on, proposed to have what she called a "little evening," when most of those were invited who had been present at Mrs. Ellison's.

Flora was delighted to renew her acquaintance with one whose talents she so much admired, and whom, independently of her talent, she was so much predisposed to love.

As Edith received the kindly greetings of all, the consciousness that she was the heroine of the evening was a new and embarrassing position. With a quiet tact, and ever alive to the feelings of others, Mark understood and sympathised in her embarrassment; he advanced towards her—she had not seen him since the evening which had been so fertile in consequences. When Edith perceived Miss Horton approaching, her heart beat quickly. She had been so interested in a discussion with Mark that she had almost forgotten the object for which the party were assembled the consciousness returned in full force.

"Now, Mr. Ellison," said Miss Horton, abruptly, and casting a rapid glance at each," you will please to lead Miss Brown" (for Miss Horton's propensity to the mysterious had already substituted a professional name) "to the instrument;" then, turning to Edith, and observing that she rose from her chair with shrinking timidity, "Wont do at all!" she exclaimed aloud, and darted to a distant part of the room.

Indeed, Edith felt that it would not do, and, making a strong effort to recover herself, she took her station at the instrument. She felt the presence of Mark a restraining influence, and she wished he had not been there.

While she was singing, Aunt Rebecca observed her intently, and after Edith had finished her song, had risen from the instrument, and had received the congratulations of the company, she approached nearer.

"My dear young lady," she said, "if I am late in offering my incense, believe me it is not the less ardent."

As she spoke, her eyes were fixed on a small brooch, it was one which Mrs. Maitland had given to Edith. Aunt Rebecca did not heed what Edith answered, but she hastily took her hand, and, detaining it with a trembling grasp, and looking earnestly in her face, said

"May I speak to you?"

Without waiting for an answer she led her into the inner drawing-room; no one was there, and placing Edith on a couch concealed by the half-open door she said hurriedly— "Tell me tell me who you are?"

Edith looked at Aunt Rebecca, but she had been so much taken by surprise that at first she could not answer, then, recovering her self-possession

"I am―my name is-is-that is, I am called Miss Brown."

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Rebecca, hurriedly, "I know that; but your own name-your real one-what is it?"

Edith hesitated, and then she told it.

"Maitland! is that indeed your name? and that brooch? tell me tell me how came it yours!"

"This brooch was my mother's."

"Your mother's! and does your mother live?"

"Thank heaven, she does."

66
'And your mother's name?"

"I am her daughter," said Edith, evasively, "and our names are the same."

"Pardon me, young lady-I pray you, pardon me, but has your mother had a second husband?"

"No!" said Edith, and a slight shudder passed over her as she thought of him who had been the first.

"I cannot understand it," said Aunt Rebecca; "there is a mystery which I am unable to penetrate. Your strong resemblance, this brooch-my first token of remembrance to her who was my earliest and dearest friend-these tell me

that friend is your mother. It is many, many years since we parted, and I believed her to be dead."

"To the world, my mother has long been dead, but there is an inner world in which she lives to love and to be beloved. My mother speaks not often of the past, yet there are a few shadowy forms to which she has given tangibility. If you are indeed her early friend, one of these forms is yours, though the name was never told to me."

"And your mother?”

“She has had a long and trying illness, from the effects of which she is scarcely yet recovered; but, dear madam,” continued Edith, as she returned the affectionate pressure of Aunt Rebecca's hand, “when I tell her there is a sunbeam from the past to throw light on her future, I am sure she will be impatient to feel the warmth of its rays."

"And tell her," said Aunt Rebecca, “that though a sunbeam may be long overshadowed by clouds, it loses no particle of its warmth."

Doubtful as to the effect of her communication, Edith was anxious till she had told her mother the strange chance which had brought her in contact with Aunt Rebecca, that friend of early years she had heard her mention with such tender regret. The details of Mrs. Maitland's history being too painful to be communicated, Aunt Rebecca had been left to form her own conjectures on the sudden cessation of intercourse. She had written again and again, addressing her letters to Mrs. Maitland's residence in town; the letters had been returned to her "not known," and when she visited London the following year she found the house shut up, and all trace of her friend lost.

It had been generally supposed that Mrs. Maitland's husband, having incurred debts at the gaming-table which he was unable to discharge, had absconded to America, and that his wife and children had followed him. The first part of this report, so far as it went, was correct; the inaccuracy of the latter was known only to Mr. and Miss Horton, who were

too much aware of the necessity of secrecy to give any information on the subject.

So many years had now elapsed, that there was no longer necessity for this concealment; and if Mrs. Maitland's circumstances had permitted, for the sake of her daughters, she would have resumed her position in the world. That being impossible, they would have been altogether excluded. from society but for the kindness of Miss Horton, who had taken every opportunity of introducing Helen and Edith as her young friends; and as Miss Horton's love of patronage was generally known, any young lady she might introduce was considered as one of her necessary appendages, and was received without question.

When Edith at length ventured to tell her mother of the meeting with Aunt Rebecca, she was surprised to find it an event which Mrs. Maitland had anticipated. Many times since Edith's introduction to the Ellisons she had been on the point of preparing her for such an interview; but she finally resolved to leave it to chance. She knew not what changes time and long absence might have wrought on the feelings of her former friend; but she was sure that if they remained unchanged as her own, the strong resemblance of Edith to her former self, and the recognition of the little brooch, would tend to the discovery.

"And so, dear mother," said Edith, in a tone of playful reproach, "while I have been devising how to save you from a scene, you have absolutely been laying a trap to draw me into one. But I told this dear Aunt Rebecca,—as Miss Ellison calls her, and as I like to call her also,—that I would lose no time in telling her when she might come."

Edith did not lose time; and in about an hour after Aunt Rebecca had received her note, Mrs. Ellison's carriage was at her mother's door. Edith escaped; she left the long-separated friends to the uninterrupted interchange of their pent-up feelings.

CHAPTER XXI.

AMONG the company who had been present on the evening at Mrs. Ellison's was Lady Shaw; she had established for herself the reputation of being a great patroness of talent in whatever form, and her parties were remarkable for singular exhibitions of the arts and sciences. Lady Shaw was warmly predisposed to dispense a large share of her patronage on Edith, whose name was included in Mrs. Ellison's card for one of her approaching soirées. Though Miss Horton was tenacious about any interference in her plans for Edith, yet, on reading the invitation, she threw down the card, rubbed her hands, and said

"You must go by all means."

And Edith went.

* The lamps were not yet lighted when Mrs. Ellison's party entered the long suite of drawing-rooms; but before they had reached the inner one, the gas was turned on, illuminating the whole with a sudden glare of brilliant light. The effect was so instantaneous, that it seemed to have been produced by enchantment. The apartments were most splendid; the shutters to the numerous windows were mirrors, surrounded by broad frames of gilded carving. The folding-doors also were encased in glass, so that when they were closed, and all access to the outer world thus apparently excluded, it might have puzzled the uninitiated to devise where had been the means of entrance, or, having entered, where was the escape from the splendid prison. Every article of furniture told that imagination had been on the torture to produce something unseen before. The chairs did not look as if they had been made to sit on, and the other sittings were so distorted from their purpose, that it was difficult to ascertain what that purpose was. The rooms were overladen with every article of splendid luxury