"I wonder if he has changed," said the mother, glancing at the opposite mirror and arranging the puffs of glossy false hair which shaded her aristocratic forehead.
"Of course he has changed somewhat," returned Miss Asenath, rubbing together her white, bony hands, on one of which a costly diamond was flashing. "Nearly two years of Paris society must have imparted to him thatair distinguéso desirable in a young man who has traveled."
"He'll hardly fail of making a good match now," Miss Eudora remarked, caressing the pet spaniel which had climbed into her lap. "I think we must manage to visit Saratoga or some of those places next summer. Mr. Gardner found his wife at Newport, and they say she's worth half a million."
"But horridly ugly," and Anna looked up from the reverie in which she had been indulging. "Lottie says she has tow hair and a face like a fish. John would never be happy with such a wife."
"Possibly you think he had better have married that sewing girl about whom he wrote us just before going to Europe," Miss Eudora said spitefully, pinching the long silken ears of her pet until the animal yelled with pain.
There was a faint sigh from the direction of Anna's chair, and all knew she was thinking of the missionary. The mother continued:
"I trust he is over that fancy, and ready to thank me for the strong letter I wrote him."
"Yes, but the girl," and Anna leaned her white cheek in her whiter hand. "None of us know the harm his leaving her may have done. Don't you remember he wrote how much she loved him—how gentle and confiding her nature was, and how to leave her then might prove her ruin?"
"Our little Anna is growing very eloquent upon the subject of sewing girls," Miss Asenath said, rather scornfully, and Anna rejoined:
"I am not sure she was a sewing girl. He spoke of her as a schoolgirl."