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Ever since the day on which Lenora had startled Carrie
by informing her of her danger, she had been carefully
kept from the room, or allowed only to enter it when
Margaret was present. One afternoon, however, early in
February, Mag had occasion to go to the village. Lenora,
who saw her depart, hastily gathered up her work,
and repaired to Carrie's room, saying, as she entered it,
“Now, Carrie, we'll have a good time; Mag has gone to
see old deaf Peggy, who asks a thousand questions, and
will keep her at least two hours, and I am going to entertain
you to the best of my ability.”

Carrie's cheek flushed, for she felt some misgivings with
regard to the nature of Lenora's entertainment; but she
knew there was no help for it, so she tried to smile, and
said, “I am willing you should stay, Lenora, but you
must n't talk bad things to me, for I can't bear it.”

“Bad things!” repeated Lenora, “Who ever heard
me talk bad things? What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Carrie, “that you must not talk about
your mother, as you sometimes do. It is wicked.”

“Why, you dear little thing,” answered Lenora, “don't
you know that what would be wicked for you, isn't wicked
for me?”

“No, I do not know so,” answered Carrie; “but I
know I wouldn't talk about my mother as you do about
yours, for anything.”

“Bless your heart,” said Lenora, “have n't you sense
enough to see that there is a great difference between
Mrs. Hamilton 1st, and Mrs. Hamilton 2d? Now, I'm

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not naturally bad, and if I had been the daughter of Mrs.
Hamilton 1st, instead of Widow Carter's young-one, why,
I should have been as good as you;—no, not as good as
you, for you don't know enough to be bad,—but as good
as Mag, who, in my opinion, has the right kind of goodness,
for all I used to hate her so.”

“Hate Margaret!” said Carrie, opening her eyes to
their utmost extent. “What did you hate Margaret
for?”

“Because I didn't know her, I suppose,” returned Lenora;
“for now I like her well enough—not quite as well
as I do you, perhaps; and yet, when I see you bear
mother's abuse so meekly, I positively hate you for a minute,
and ache to box your ears; but when Mag squares
up to her, shuts her in the china closet, and all that, I
want to put my arms right round her neck.”

“Why, don't you like your mother?” asked Carrie;
and Lenora replied: “Of course I do; but I know what
she is, and I know she is n't what she sometimes seems.
Why, she'd be anything to suit the circumstances. She
wanted your father, and she assumed the character most
likely to secure him; for, between you and me, he is n't
very smart.”

“What did she marry him for, then?” asked Carrie.

“Marry him! I hope you don't for a moment suppose
she married him!”

“Why, Lenora, ain't they married? I thought they
were. Oh, dreadful!” and Carrie started to her feet,
while the perspiration stood thickly on her forehead.

Lenora screamed with delight, saying, “You certainly
have the softest brain I ever saw. Of course the minister
went through with the ceremony; but it was not your
father that mother wanted; it was his house—his money—
his horses—his servants, and his name. Now, may be,

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in your simplicity, you have thought that mother came
here out of kindness to the motherless children; but I
tell you, she would be better satisfied if neither of you
had ever been born. I suppose it is wicked in me to say
so, but I think she makes me worse than I would otherwise
be; for I am not naturally so bad, and I like people
much better than I pretend to. Any way, I like you,
and love little Willie, and always have, since the first time
I saw him. Your mother lay in her coffin, and Willie
stood by her, caressing her cold cheek, and saying,
“Wake up, mamma, it's Willie; don't you know Willie?”
I took him in my arms, and vowed to love and shield him
from the coming evil; for I knew then, as well as I do
now, that what has happened would happen. Mag wasn't
there; she didn't see me. If he had, she might have
liked me better; now she thinks there is no good in
me; and if, when you die, I should feel like shedding
tears, and perhaps I shall, it would be just like her to
wonder `what business I had to cry — it was none of my
funeral!”'

“You do wrong to talk so, Lenora,” said Carrie;
“but tell me, did you never have any one to love except
Willie?”

“Yes,” said Lenora; “when I was a child, a little, innocent
child, I had a grandmother—my father's mother—
who taught me to pray, and told me of God.”

“Where is she now?” asked Carrie.

“In heaven,” was the answer. “I know she is there,
because when she died, there was the same look on her
face that there was on your mother's—the same that there
will be on yours, when you are dead.”

“Never mind,” gasped Carrie, who did not care to be
so frequently reminded of her mortality, while Lenora
continued: “Perhaps you don't know that my father was,

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as mother says, a bad man; though I always loved him
dearly, and cried when he went away. We lived with
grandmother, and sometimes now, in my dreams, I am
a child again, kneeling by grandma's side, in our dear old
eastern home, where the sunshine fell so warmly, where
the summer birds sang in the old maple trees, and where
the long shadows, which I called spirits, came and went
over the bright green meadows. But there was a sadder
day; a narrow coffin, a black hearse, and a tolling bell,
which always wakes me from my sleep, and I find the
dream all gone, and nothing left of the little child but the
wicked Lenora Carter.”

Here the dark girl buried her face in her hands and
wept, while Carrie gently smoothed her tangled curls.
After a while, as if ashamed of her emotion, Lenora dried
her tears, and Carrie said, “Tell me more of your early
life. I like you when you act as you do now.”

“There is nothing more to tell but wickedness,” answered
Lenora. “Grandma died, and I had no one to
teach me what was right. About a year after her death,
mother wanted to get a divorce from father; and one
day she told me that a lawyer was coming to inquire
about my father's treatment of her. `Perhaps,' said she,
`he will ask if you ever saw him strike me, and you must
say that you have, a great many times.' `But I never
did,' said I; and then she insisted upon my telling that
falsehood, and I refused, until she whipped me, and made
me promise to say whatever she wished me to. In this
way I was trained to be what I am. Nobody loves me;
nobody ever can love me; and sometimes when Mag
speaks so kindly to you, and looks so affectionately upon
you, I think, what would I not give for some one to love
me; and then I go away to cry, and wish I had never
been born.”

p598-080

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Here Mrs. Hamilton called to her daughter, and, gathering
up her work, Lenora left the room just as Margaret
entered it, on her return from the village.