Bad Hugh

Adah did not tell Dr. Richards, and perhaps she did not herself know how

surprised and delighted Mrs. Ellsworth was with the fair, girlish

creature, announced to her as Miss Gordon, and who won her heart before

five minutes were gone, making her think it of no consequence to inquire

concerning her at Madam ----'s school, where she said she had been a

pupil.

"My sister must have been there at the same time," Mrs. Ellsworth had

said. "Perhaps you remember her, Augusta Stanley?"

Yes, Miss Gordon remembered her well, but added modestly: "She may have forgotten me, as I was only a day scholar, and--not--not

quite her circle. I was poor."

Charmed with her frankness, Mrs. Ellsworth decided in her own mind to

take her, but, for form's sake, she would write to her sister Augusta,

recently married, and living in Milwaukee.

"Your first name is Maria," she said, taking out her pencil to write it

down.

Adah could not tell a lie, and she replied unhesitatingly: "No, ma'am; my name is Adah Maria, but I prefer being called Maria."

Mrs. Ellsworth nodded, wrote down "Adah Maria Gordon," but in the letter

sent that day to Augusta, merely spoke of her governess in prospect as a

Miss Gordon, who had been at the same school with Augusta, asking if she

remembered her.

Yes, Augusta remembered Miss Gordon, well, a brown-eyed, sweet-faced,

conscientious little creature whom she liked so much, and whose services

her sister had better secure.

Mrs. Ellsworth hesitated no longer, and ten days after the receipt of

this letter, Adah was duly installed as governess to the delighted

little Jennie, who learned to love her gentle teacher with a love almost

amounting to idolatry.

"You were in Europe then, and that is the reason why we could not find

you," Dr. Richards said, adding, after a moment: "And Irving Stanley

went with you--was your companion all the while?"

"Yes, all the while," and Adah's cold fingers worked nervously at the

wisp of hay she was twisting in her hand. "I had seen him before--he was

in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill. Willie

had the earache, and he was so kind to us both."

Adah looked fixedly now at the craven doctor, who could not meet her

glance, for well he remembered the dastardly part he had played in that

scene, where his own child was screaming with pain, and he sat selfishly

idle.

"She don't know I was there, though," he thought, and that gave him some

comfort.

But Adah did know, and she meant he should know she did. Keeping her

calm brown eyes still fixed upon him, she continued: "I heard Mr. Stanley talking of you once to his sister, and among other

things he spoke of your dislike for children, and referred to an

occasion in the cars, when a little boy, for whom his heart ached, was

suffering acutely, and for whom you evinced no interest, except to call

him a brat, and wonder why his mother did not stay at home. I never knew

till then that you were so near to me."