moments that the contents of the Japanese box should be destroyed. Edith wondered why she had kept the letters at all--why she had not destroyed them immediately upon adopting her, and thus prevented the possibility of a revelation like this.

To be sure, no one save herself need ever know of the fact unless she chose to disclose it; nevertheless, she felt just as deeply branded by it as if all the world had known of it. "Oh, I had begun to hope that--" she began, then abruptly ceased, a burning flush suffusing her face as her thoughts thus went out toward Royal Bryant, whose eyes had only the day before told her, as plainly as eyes could speak, that he loved her, while her heart had thrilled with secret joy over the revelation, and the knowledge that her own affection had been irrevocably given to him, even though they had known each other so short a time. Even in the midst of her sorrow over her dead, the thought that she loved and was beloved had been like the strains of soothing music to her, and she had looked forward to her return to the young lawyer's office as to a place of refuge, where she would meet with kindness and sympathy that would comfort her immeasurably. But these beautiful dreams had been ruthlessly shattered; she could never be anything to Royal Bryant--he could never be anything to her, after learning what she had learned that night.

Edith determined to leave New York at once. With this object in view, she disposed of most of her furniture to a broker, who gave her sixty dollars for it. She reserved articles she presented to her stanch friend, Kate O'Brien. These matters attended to, she wrote a letter to Mr. Bryant, mailed it, and a few hours later was on the train, en route to Boston.

On Thursday morning Mr. Bryant, returning to town from a business trip, cheerfully entered his office, expecting to behold there the radiant face of Edith. To his great disappointment, she was absent; and her absence was explained in the appended letter, which he read with dismay and dejection. "DEAR MR. BRYANT:--Inclosed you will find the amount which you so kindly loaned me on Monday, and without which I should have been in sore straits. On reaching home that day, I found my mother dying. She was buried yesterday afternoon, and I am now entirely alone in the world. I find that circumstances will not permit me to return to your employ, and when you receive this I shall have left New York. Pray do not think that because I do not see you and thank you personally before I go, I am ungrateful for all your recent and unexampled kindness to me. I am not, I assure you; I shall never forget it--it will be one of the 

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