Rapidly the summer was passing away, and as autumn
drew near, the wise gossips of Glenwood began to whisper
that the lady from the east was in danger of being
supplanted in her rights by the widow, whose house Mr.
Hamilton was known to visit two or three times each
week. But Lenora had always some plausible story on
hand. “Mother and the lady had been so intimate — in
fact more than once rocked in the same cradle — and
't was no wonder Mr. Hamilton came often to a place
where he could hear so much about her.”

So when business again took Mr. Hamilton to Albany,
suspicion was wholly lulled, and Walter, on his return
from college, was told by Mag that her fears concerning
Mrs. Carter were groundless. During the spring, Carrie
had been confined to her bed, but now she seemed much
better, and after Walter had been at home awhile, he
proposed that he and his sisters should take a traveling
excursion, going first to Saratoga, thence to Lake Champlain
and Montreal, and returning home by way of Canada
and the Falls. This plan Mr. Hamilton warmly seconded,
and when Carrie asked if he would not feel lonely, he
answered, “Oh, no; Willie and I will do very well while
you are gone.”

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

“But who will stay with Willie evenings, when you
are away?” asked Mag, looking her father steadily in
the face.

Mr. Hamilton colored slightly, but after a moment, replied:
“I shall spend my evenings at home.”

“'Twill be what he hasn't done for many a week,”
thought Mag, as she again busied herself with her
preparations.

The morning came, at last, on which our travelers were
to leave. Kate Kirby had been invited to accompany
them, but her mother would not consent. “It would
give people too much chance for talk,” she said; so Kate
was obliged to content herself with going as far as the
depot, and watching, until out of sight, the car which
bore them away.

Upon the piazza stood the little group, awaiting the
arrival of the carriage, which was to convey them to the
station. Mr. Hamilton seemed unusually gloomy, and
with folded arms paced up and down the long piazza,
rarely speaking or noticing any one.

“Are you sorry we are going, father?” asked Carrie,
going up to him. “If you are, I will gladly stay with
you.”

Mr. Hamilton paused, and pushing back the fair hair
from his daughter's white brow, he kissed her tenderly,
saying, “No, Carrie; I want you to go. The journey
will do you good, for you are getting too much the look
your poor mother used to wear.”

Why thought he then of Carrie's mother? Was it because
he knew that ere his child returned to him, another
would be in that mother's place? Anon, Margaret came
near, and motioning Carrie away, Mr. Hamilton took his
other daughter's hand, and led her to the end of the
piazza, where could easily be seen the little grave-yard,

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

and tall white monument pointing toward the bright blue
sky, where dwelt the one whose grave that costly marble
marked.

Pointing out the spot to Margaret, he said, “Tell me
truly, Maggie, did you love your father or your mother
best?”

Mag looked wonderingly at him a moment, and then
replied, “While mother lived, I loved her more than you,
but now that she is dead, I think of and love you as both
father and mother.”

“And will you always love me thus?” asked he.

“Always,” was Mag's reply, as she looked curiously in
her father's face, and thinking that he had not said what
he intended to when first he drew her there.

Just then the carriage drove up, and after a few good-bys
and parting words, Ernest Hamilton's children were
gone, and he was left alone.

“Why didn't I tell her, as I intended to?” thought
he. “Is it because I fear her,—fear my own child? No,
it cannot be,—and yet there is that in her eye which
sometimes makes me quail, and which, if necessary, would
keep at bay a dozen step-mothers. But neither she, nor
either one of them, has ought to dread from Mrs. Carter,
whose presence will, I think, be of great benefit to us all,
and whose gentle manners, I trust, will tend to soften
Mag!”

Meantime his children were discussing and wondering
at the strange mood of their father. Walter, however,
took no part in the conversation. He had lived longer
than his sisters,—had seen more of human nature, and
had his own suspicions with regard to what would take
place during their absence; but he could not spoil all
Margaret's happiness by telling her his thoughts, so he
kept them to himself, secretly resolving to make the best

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

of whatever might occur, and to advise Mag to do the
same.

Now for a time we leave them, and take a look into
the cottage of Widow Carter, where, one September morning,
about three weeks after the departure of the Hamiltons,
preparations were making for some great event. In
the kitchen a servant girl was busily at work, while in the
parlor Lenora was talking and the widow was listening.

“Oh, mother,” said Lenora, “isn't it so nice that they
went away just now? But won't Mag look daggers at
us, when she comes home and finds us in quiet possession,
and is told to call you mother!”

“I never expect her to do that,” answered Mrs. Carter.
“The most I can hope for is that she will call me Mrs.
Hamilton.”

“Now really, mother, if I were in Mag's place, I
wouldn't please you enough to say Mrs. Hamilton; I'd
always call you Mrs. Carter,” said Lenora.

“How absurd,” was the reply; and Lenora continued:
“I know it's absurd, but I'd do it; though if she does, I,
as the dutiful child of a most worthy parent, shall feel
compelled to resent the insult by calling her father Mr.
Carter!”

By this time Mrs. Carter was needed in the kitchen;
so, leaving Lenora, who at once was the pest and torment
of her mother's life, we will go into the village and see
what effect the approaching nuptials were producing. It
was now generally known that the “lady from the east”
who had been “rocked in Mrs. Carter's cradle,” was none
other than Mrs. Carter herself, and many were the reproving
looks which the people had cast toward Lenora
for the trick she had put upon them. The little hussy
only laughed at them good humoredly, telling them they
were angry because she had cheated them out of five

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

months' gossip, and that if her mother could have had her
way, she would have sent the news to the Herald and had
it inserted under the head of “Awful Catastrophe!”
Thus Mrs. Carter was exonerated from all blame; but
many a wise old lady shook her head, saying, “How
strange that so fine a woman as Mrs. Carter should have
such a reprobate of a daughter.”

When this remark came to Lenora's ears, she cut numerous
flourishes, which ended in the upsetting of a bowl
of starch on her mother's new black silk; then dancing
before the highly indignant lady, she said, “Perhaps if
they knew what a scapegrace you represent my father to
have been, and how you whipped me once to make me
say I saw him strike you, when I never did, they would
wonder at my being as good as I am.”

Mrs. Carter was too furious to venture a verbal reply;
so seizing the starch bowl, she hurled it with the remainder
of the contents at the head of the little vixen, who,
with an elastic bound, not entirely unlike a summerset,
dodged the missile, which passed on and fell upon the
hearth rug.

This is but one of a series of similar scenes, which occurred
between the widow and her child before the happy
day arrived, when, in the presence of a select few of the
villagers, Luella Carter was transformed into Luella Hamilton.
The ceremony was scarcely over, when Mr. Hamilton,
who for a few days had been rather indisposed,
complained of feeling sick. Immediately Lenora, with a
sidelong glance at her mother, exclaimed, “What, sick
of your bargain so quick? It's sooner, even, than I
thought 't would be, and I'm sure I'm capable of
judging.”

“Dear Lenora,” said Mrs. Carter, turning toward one

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

of her neighbors, “she has such a flow of spirits, that I
am afraid Mr. Hamilton will find her troublesome.

“Don't be alarmed, mother; he'll never think of me
when you are around,” was Lenora's reply, in which Mrs.
Carter saw more than one meaning.

That evening the bridal party repaired to the homestead,
where, at Mr. Hamilton's request, Mrs. Kirby was
waiting to receive them. Willie had been told by the
servants that his mother was coming home that night,
and, with the trusting faith of childhood, he had drawn a
chair to the window from which he could see his mother's
grave; and there for more than an hour he watched for
the first indications of her coming, saying, occasionally,
“Oh, I wish she'd come. Willie's so sorry here.”

At last growing weary and discouraged, he turned
away and said, “No ma 'll never come home again; Maggie
said she wouldn't.”

Upon the carriage road which wound from the street
to the house, there was the sound of coming wheels, and
Rachel, seizing Willie, bore him to the front door, exclaiming,
“An' faith, Willie, don't you see her? That's
your mother, honey, with the black gown.”

But Willie saw only the wild eyes of Lenora, who
caught him in her arms, overwhelming him with caresses.
“Let me go, Leno,” said he “I want to see my ma.
Where is she?”

A smile of scorn curled Lenora's lips, as she released
him, and leading him toward her mother, she said,
“There she is; there's your ma. Now hold up your
head and make a bow.”

Willie's lip quivered, his eyes filled with tears, and
hiding his face in his apron, he sobbed, “I want my own
ma,— the one they shut up in a big black box. Where
is she, Leno?

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

Mr. Hamilton took Willie on his knee, and tried to explain
to him, how that now his own mother was dead, he
had got a new one, who would love him and be kind to
him. Then putting him down, he said, “Go, my son, and
speak to her, won't you?”

Willie advanced rather cautiously toward the black
silk figure, which reached out its hand, saying, “Dear
Willie, you'll love me a little, won't you?”

“Yes, if you are good to me,” was the answer, which
made the new step-mother mentally exclaim, “A young
rebel, I know,” while Lenora, bending between the two,
whispered emphatically, “She shall be good to you!”

And soon, in due order, the servants were presented to
their new mistress. Some were disposed to like her,
others eyed her askance, and old Polly Pepper, the black
cook, who had been in the family ever since Mr. Hamilton's
first marriage, returned her salutation rather gruffly,
and then, stalking back to the kitchen, muttered to those
who followed her, “I don't like her face no how; she
looks just like the milk-snakes, when they stick their heads
in at the door.”

“But you knew how she looked before,” said Lucy, the
chambermaid.

“I know it,” returned Polly; “but when she was here
nussin', I never noticed her, more'n I would any on you;
for who'd of thought that Mr. Hamilton would marry
her, when he knows, or or'to know, that nusses ain't fust
cut, no how; and you may depend on't, things ain't a
goin' to be here as they used to be.”

Here Rachel started up, and related the circumstance of
Margaret's refusing to see “that little evil-eyed lookin'
varmint, with curls almost like Polly's.”

Lucy, too, suddenly remembered something which she
had seen, or heard, or made up, so that Mrs. Carter had

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

not been an hour in the coveted homestead ere there was
mutiny against her afloat in the kitchen; “But,” said
Aunt Polly, “I 'vises you all to be civil till she sasses you
fust!”

“My dear, what room can Lenora have for her own?”
asked Mrs, Hamilton, as we must now call her, the morning
following her marriage.

“Why, really, I don't know,” answered the husband;
“you must suit yourselves with regard to that.”

“Yes; but I'd rather you'd select, and then no one can
blame me,” was the answer.

“Choose any room you please, except the one which
Mag and Carrie now occupy, and rest assured you shall
not be blamed,” said Mr. Hamilton.

The night before, Lenora had appropriated to herself
the best chamber, but the room was so large and so far
distant from any one, and the windows and fireboard rattled
so, that she felt afraid, and did not care to repeat her
experiment.

“I 'clar for 't!” said Polly, when she heard of it,
“Gone right into the best bed, where even Miss Margaret
never goes! What are we all comin' to? Tell her,
Luce, the story of the ghosts, and I'll be bound she'll make
herself scarce in them rooms!”

“Tell her yourself,” said Lucy; and when, after breakfast,
Lenora, anxious to spy out everything, appeared in
the kitchen, Aunt Polly called out, “Did you hear anything
last night, Miss Lenora?”

“Why, yes—I heard the windows rattle,” was the answer;
and Aunt Polly, with an ominous shake of the
head, continued: “There's more than windows rattle, I

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

guess. Didn't you see nothin', all white and corpse-like,
go a whizzin' and rappin' by your bed?”

“Why, no,” said Lenora; “what do you mean?”

So Polly told her of the ghosts and goblins which
nightly ranged the two chambers, over the front and back
parlors. Lenora said nothing, but she secretly resolved
not to venture again after dark into the haunted portion
of the house. But where should she sleep? That was
now the important question. Adjoining the sitting-room
was a pleasant, cozy little place, which Margaret called
her music-room. In it she kept her piano, her musicstand,
books, and several fine plants, besides numerous
other little conveniences. At the end of this room was a
large closet, where, at different seasons of the year, Mag
hung away the articles of clothing which she and her sister
did not need.

Toward this place Lenora turned her eyes; for, besides
being unusually pleasant, it was also very near her mother,
whose sleeping-room joined, though it did not communicate
with it. Accordingly, before noon the piano was removed
to the parlor; the plants were placed, some on
the piazza, and some in the sitting-room window, while
Margaret and Carrie's dresses were removed to the closet
of their room, which chanced to be a trifle too small to
hold them all conveniently; so they were crowded one
above the other, and left for “the girls to see to when
they came home!”

In perfect horror Aunt Polly looked on, regretting for
once the ghost story which she had told.

“Why don't you take the chamber jinin' the young ladies?
that ain't haunted,” said she, when they sent for
her to help move the piano. “Miss Margaret won't thank
you for scatterin' her things.”

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“You've nothing to do with Lenora,” said Mrs. Hamilton;
“you've only to attend to your own matters.”

“Wonder then what I'm up here for a h'istin' this pianner,”
muttered Polly. “This ain't my matters, sartin'.”

When Mr. Hamilton came in to dinner, he was shown
the little room with its single bed, tiny bureau, silken
lounge and easy chair, of which the last two were Mag's
especial property.

“All very nice,” said he, “but where is Mag's piano?”

“In the parlor,” answered his wife. “People often
ask for music, and it is more convenient to have it there,
than to come across the hall and through the sitting-room.”

Mr. Hamilton said nothing, but he secretly wished
Mag's rights had not been invaded quite so soon. His
wife must have guessed as much; for, laying her hand on
his, she, with the utmost deference, offered to undo all
she had done, if it did not please him.

“Certainly not — certainly not; it does please me,”
said he; while Polly, who stood on the cellar stairs listening,
exclaimed, “What a fool a woman can make of a
man!”

Three days after Mr. Hamilton's marriage, he received
a letter from Walter, saying that they would be at home
on the Thursday night following. Willie was in ecstasies,
for though, as yet, he liked his new mother tolerably well,
he still loved Maggie better; and the thought of seeing
her again made him wild with delight. All day long on
Thursday he sat in the doorway, listening for the shrill
cry of the train which was to bring her home.

“Don't you love Maggie?” said he to Lenora, who
chanced to pass him.

“Don't I love Maggie? No, I don't; neither does
she love me,” was the answer.

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

Willie was puzzled to know why any one should not
like Mag; but his confidence in her was not at all shaken,
and when, soon after sunset, Lenora cried, “There,
they've come,” he rushed to the door, and was soon in
the arms of his sister-mother. Pressing his lips to hers,
he said, “Did you know I'd got a new mother? Mrs.
Carter and Leno — they are in there,” pointing toward
the parlor.

Instantly Mag dropped him. It was the first intimation
of her father's marriage which she had received, and
reeling backward, she would have fallen, had not Walter
supported her. Quickly rallying, she advanced toward
her father, who came to meet her, and whose hand trembled
in her grasp. After greeting each of his children,
he turned to present them to his wife, wisely taking Carrie
first. She was not prejudiced, like Mag, and returned
her step-mother's salutation with something like affection,
for which Lenora rewarded her by terming her a
“little simpleton.”

But Mag—she who had warned her father against that
woman — she who on her knees had begged him not to
marry her—she had no word of welcome, and when Mrs.
Hamilton offered her hand, she affected not to see it,
though, with the most frigid politeness, she said, “Good
evening, madam; this is, indeed, a surprise!”

“And not a very pleasant one, either, I imagine,” whispered
Lenora to Carrie.

Walter came last, and though he took the lady's hand,
there was something in his manner which plainly said,
she was not wanted there. Tea was now announced, and
Mag bit her lip when she saw her accustomed seat occupied
by another.

Feigning to recollect herself, Mrs. Hamilton, in the

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

blandest tones, said, “Perhaps, dear Maggie, you would
prefer this seat?”

“Of course not,” said Mag; while Lenora thought to
herself, “And if she does, I wonder what good it will
do?”

That young lady, however, made no remarks, for Walter
Hamilton's searching eyes were upon her and kept
her silent. After tea, Walter said, “Come, Mag, I have
not heard your piano in a long time. Give us some
music.”

Mag arose to comply with his wishes, but ere she had
reached the door, Mrs. Hamilton, gently detained her,
saying, “Maggie, dear, Lenora, has always slept near me,
and as I knew you would not object, if you were here,
I took the liberty to remove your piano to the parlor, and
to fit this up for Lenora's sleeping room. See—” and she
threw open the door, disclosing the metamorphose, while
Willie, who began to get an inkling of matters, and who
always called the piazza “out doors,” chimed in, “And
they throw'd your little trees out doors, too!”

Mag stood for a moment, mute with astonishment;
then, thinking she could not “do the subject justice,”
she turned silently away. A roguish smile from Walter
met her eye, but she did not laugh, until, with Carrie,
she repaired to her own room, and tried to put something
in the closet. Then coming upon the pile of extra
clothes, she exclaimed, “What in the world! Here's all
our winter clothing, and, as I live, five dresses crammed
upon one nail! We'll have to move to the barn, next!”

This was too much, and sitting down, Mag cried and
laughed alternately.