"Great Heaven! have I been deceived, after all? Was the kindness of the Pendleton girls and their parents only assumed? Was there a monetary reason back of it all?" she mused.

A great pain shot through her heart; a wave of intense bitterness filled her soul.

"I will test these girls," muttered Miss Rogers, setting her lips together; "and that, too, before another hour passes over my head."

After a few moments more of deliberation, she arose, and with firm step passed slowly down the broad hall to the sitting-room.

Mrs. Pendleton and her eldest daughter Louisa had left the apartment. Sally alone was there, lounging on a divan, her hair in curl-papers, reading the latest French novel.

On her entering, down went the book, and Sally sprung up, her face wreathed in smiles.
Just as that little scene was taking place, a brougham, drawn by a pair of spirited horses, was being driven rapidly down the street, and was almost abreast of the house as this extraordinary little drama was being enacted. Its occupant had ordered the driver to halt at the Pendleton mansion, and looking out of the window, he had seen with amazement the whole occurrence--had seen Sally Pendleton, who had always posed before him as a sweet-tempered angel--actually thrust a feeble-looking, poorly-dressed woman out of the house and into the street to face a storm so wild and pitiless that most people would have hesitated before even turning a homeless, wandering cur out into it. Doctor Gardiner's carriage drew up quickly before the curbstone, and as he sprang from the vehicle, his astonishment can better be imagined than described at finding himself face to face with his friend, Miss Rogers, and that it was she who had been ejected so summarily. The poor soul almost fainted for joy when she beheld the young physician. "My dear Miss Rogers!" he cried in amazement, "what in the name of Heaven does the scene I have just witnessed mean?" "Take me into your carriage, and drive down the street; that is, if you are not in a hurry to make a professional call." Jay Gardiner lifted the drenched, trembling woman in his strong arms, placed her in the vehicle, took his seat beside her, and the brougham rolled down the avenue. Clinging to his strong young arm, Miss Rogers told, between her smiles and tears, all that had taken place--of the test which she had put the Pendletons to before leaving her money to the girl Sally, who had been named after her; of its disastrous ending when she told Sally she was poor instead of rich; of the abuse the girl had heaped upon her, which 

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