Bad Hugh

"God tell me what to do with Willie?" she sobbed, starting suddenly as

the answer to her prayer seemed to come at once. "Oh, can I do that?"

she moaned; "can I leave him here?"

At first her whole soul recoiled from it, but when she remembered Anna,

and how much she loved the child, her feelings began to change. Anna

would love him more when she knew he was poor Lily's and her own

brother's. She would be kind to him for his father's sake, and for the

sake of the girl she had professed to like. Mrs. Richards, too, would

not cast him off. She thought too much of the Richards' blood, and there

was surely enough in Willie's veins to wipe out all taint of hers.

Willie should be bequeathed to Anna. It would break her heart to leave

him, were it not already broken, but it was better so. It would be

better in the end. He would forget her in time, forget the girlish woman

he had called mamma, unless sweet Anna told him of her, as perhaps she

might. Dear Anna, how Adah longed to fold her arms about her once and

call her sister, but she must not. It might not be well received, for

Anna had some pride, as her waiting maid had learned.

"A waiting maid!" Adah repeated the name, smiling bitterly as she

thought. "A waiting maid in his own home! Who would have dreamed that I

should ever come to this, when he painted the future so grandly?"

Then there came over her the wild, yearning desire to see his face once

more, to know if he had changed, and why couldn't she? They supposed her

gone to the office, and she would go there now, taking the depot on the

way.

* * * * *

Apart in the ladies' room at Snowdon depot, a veiled figure sat--Dr.

Richards' deserted wife--waiting for him, waiting to look on his face

once more ere she fled she knew not whither. He came at last, Jim's

voice speaking to his horses heralding his approach.

The group of rough-looking men gathered about the office did not suit

his mood, and so he came on to the ladies' apartment, just as Adah knew

he would. Pausing for a moment on the threshold, he looked hastily in,

his glance falling upon the veiled figure sitting there so lonely and

motionless. She did not care for him, she would not object to his

presence, so he came nearer to the stove, poising his patent leathers

upon the hearth, thrusting both hands into his pockets, and even humming

to himself snatches of a song, which Lily used to sing up the three

flights of stairs in that New York boarding house.