Mrs. Brooke and Bertha did not go to New York the next day as they had intended doing.

Both of them were overcome by the scene of last night. Bertha's malevolence and angry bitterness made her almost ill. Mrs. Brooke was chagrined and regretful. She had permitted Bertha to rule her affairs with a high hand, believing in the wisdom of her ruling, and now she found that she had over-reached herself.

If she had dreamed that Guy Kenmore would claim Irene for his own, she would never have allowed her granddaughter to be driven from her doors. She had too keen a sense of the advantage to be gained from such a wealthy connection.

But it was too late now to recall the heartless deed by which she had closed Guy Kenmore's doors against her. His stern face remained in her memory, and his parting words rung like the clash of steel in her hearing:

"I hope I may never see either of your faces again."

It was just. She acknowledged it to herself, but it galled her none the less bitterly. She upbraided Bertha for her share in the transaction, and Bertha replied insolently. They spent their time in bitter recriminations, these two women who had so cleverly over-reached themselves.

In a few days a letter came from Elaine. The gentle reproach of its preface touched a painful chord in the mother's heart, for she had sadly missed her eldest daughter, though she would not have dared to say so before the overbearing Bertha.

"I have written to you many times since I left home, mamma," wrote gentle Elaine, "but as you never answered any of my letters, I conclude that they were unwelcome, and that I am forgotten and uncared for in my old home. I am writing you once again, probably for the last time."

Then in a few closely written pages Elaine told them the whole story of her new-found happiness.

"My plan for becoming an opera-singer is abandoned by the desire of my husband," she wrote, simply. "He is very wealthy, and there is no longer any need for me to work. I shall live in Baltimore. Irene's home will be here, and I cannot consent to live apart from my child. Mr. Kenmore has a superb residence here, and my husband has promised to secure a similar one for me on the same street, so that I may see my little Irene every day. Dear mamma, it seems to me that if you had loved your poor Elaine as warmly as I love my little girl, you could never have treated me so unkindly!"

It was the last drop of bitter in Bertha's cup of humiliation. Elaine, whom she had trampled upon for years, despising her for her sorrow, envying her for her beauty—Elaine to be loved, honored, crowned with wealth and happiness! It stung Bertha to the depths of her little soul. She would have sold her soul to the powers of evil for the power to drag Elaine and her daughter down from their high estate.

But there was no convenient demon about to gratify Bertha's malevolent desires, and her mother began to assert her own will, which she had long permitted Bertha to dominate. She forced her to accompany her to Baltimore to see Elaine, though she rebelled bitterly against this eating of "humble pie."

They found the long despised daughter and sister the guest of Mrs. Livingstone, one of the leaders of fashion in the monumental city. She was a sister of Guy Kenmore, and it almost maddened Bertha to sit quietly and listen to the enthusiastic praises she bestowed on her brother's beautiful bride. "I have never seen anyone so artlessly lovely and charming," she said. "She will be the rage in society. While they are taking their little tour, the Kenmore diamonds and pearls are being reset for her, and her bridal reception dress is ordered from Paris. It will be a marvel of beauty."

"All might have been mine but for that fatal night's work," Bertha told herself, full of maddening envy, and no words could have told her hatred for innocent, willful Irene.

Elaine had become like a young girl again in the sunshine of her great, new happiness. Her blue eyes beamed with love and hope, her cheeks were tinted softly like the lining of the murmurous sea-shell, she had the sweetest smile in the world. There was only one shadow on her joy:

"If only my father could have lived to see my honor vindicated and my happiness restored," she would sigh, and when she remembered the cruel blow that had struck him down to death, she would steal away to her room to weep unavailing tears for his untimely fate. But she bore her pain alone, and none of those who had been bound to old Ronald Brooke by the tie of kinship ever knew the sorrowful secret hidden in Elaine's breast. Bertha did not let her mother stay long, though Elaine was very kind and gentle, and did not reproach them for their heartless denial of her daughter. The cruel, unkind sister could not bear the sight of Elaine's happiness, and so dragged her mother away, but not before the old lady had secretly whispered in the ear of her elder daughter that "everything had all been Bertha's fault."

Elaine did not doubt it, for she well knew her sister's malice and ill-nature, but seeing how their unkindness had recoiled upon their own heads, she tried to forgive and forget.

When beautiful, happy Irene came home, she pleaded her father's cause so well that Elaine, whose own heart was pleading for him, too, relented, and suffered her daughter to write for him. He came gladly, but the reunion of the long-parted husband and wife is too sacred a subject for us to dwell upon. It was the realization of the poet's dream:

One bit of gossip, reader. Mrs. Brooke never sold her diamonds. Ten thousand dollars settled on her very quietly by her wronged and despised elder daughter, enables her and Bertha to keep their heads above water and to hold their place in society. They flash in and out from one gay resort to another, for Bertha is very restless and never contented long in one place. Mrs. Brooke is very fond of talking about "my daughter, Mrs. Stuart, and my granddaughter, Mrs. Kenmore," but it is noticeable that she is not very intimate with either. Indeed, she and Bertha have never yet crossed the threshold of the palace where Irene reigns a queen.

Bertha is an old maid now, faded, sour, and given to saying sharp things to everyone, so that no one enjoys her company, and no one dreams of seeking her for a wife. Proud, envious, spiteful, she seems to hate all the world, but no one with such concealed malice and galling bitterness as Guy Kenmore's wife.

[THE END.]