ut had not turned a leaf for half an hour. She
glanced furtively and continually about the room.

"She has found us out," thought Terpsichore, and her heart almost
stopped beating. With a great effort she controlled herself, and had
recourse to stratagem.

"Mother, dear," she said, dropping the net in her lap, "you look tired;
why don't you go to bed?"

"Oh, no, darling," said the widow, cheerfully, "I don't feel a bit
weary. But your eyes look red, and I think _you_ had better retire."

"No, mamma, not yet," she replied. "I want to finish this net. I have
done so little upon it lately."

A slight shade of vexation crossed the face of the widow.

"If you had devoted yourself to the net," she said, spitefully, "it
would have been finished."

Terpsichore blushed guiltily. Augustus had spent more than two hours
with her that day; and she felt a presentiment that impending wrath was
about to descend on her devoted head.

"I am sure, mother," she said, quietly, "_you_ can't complain of my
seeing too much company."

This shot told; for Mr. Pompadour had been very attentive of late.

Mrs. Taragon nearly tore a leaf out of her book.

"At any rate," she retorted, "my visitors are respectable."

Terpsichore's lip quivered. The remark was cruel, but it roused her
spirit.

"If my company is not respectable," she said, with an incipient sob,
"it is the fault of his bringing up."

Mr. Pompadour was hit this time, right between his eyes. The widow
blazed.

"You--you--you minx," she said, angrily, "I believe you'd like to see
me dead, and out of your way!"

The remark was utterly irrelevant; but she saw it in the book, and
thought it would be dramatic.

Terpsichore burst into tears, and beat a retreat in disorder. As she
left the room, Mrs. Taragon said to herself, with a sigh of relief,--

"Well, the coast is clear for Pompadour,--and she's safe for to-night,
any way."

Which was a slight mistake.

Ten o'clock came, and with it the carriage. A man glided silently
underneath Terpsichore's window, and a ladder was reared against 