"What did you think of doing?" Alice asked, glancing at the delicate young girl, who looked so unaccustomed to toil of any kind.
"I thought to be a governess or waiting maid," and Adah's lip began to quiver. Then she told how her letter had been carelessly forgotten.
"Do you remember the address?" and Alice waited curiously for the answer.
"Yes, 'A.E.R. Snowdon.' You came from Snowdon Miss Johnson, and I've wanted so much to ask if you knew 'A.E.R.,' but have never dared talk freely with you till to-day."
Alice was confounded. Surely the leadings of Providence were too plainly evident to be unnoticed. There was a reason why Adah Hastings must go to Anna Richards, and Alice hastened to reply: "'A.E.R.' is no less a person than Anna Richards whose mother and brother are now at Saratoga."
"Oh, I can't go there. They are too proud. They would hate me for Willie, and ask me for his father."
Very gently Alice talked to her of Snowdon and Anna Richards, whom Adah was sure to like.
"I'm so glad for your sake that it has come around at last," she said. "Will you write to her to-day, or shall I for you? Perhaps I had better!"
"Oh, no, I would rather go unannounced—rather Miss Anna should like me for my self, if I go," and Adah's voice trembled, for she shrank nervously from the thought of meeting the Richards family.
If 'Lina liked the old lady, she certainly could not, and the very thought of these elder sisters, in all their primness, dismayed and disheartened her.