"Am I all right, Ruth? Is the dress becoming?" she asked.
"Exceedingly," Mona returned; "the color is just suited to you."
"Thank you, I wonder if Mr. Palmer will also think so. Do you know," with a conscious laugh and forced blush, but with a covert glance at the girl, "I am becoming very much interested in that gentleman. I like the son, too, but chiefly for his father's sake. By the way, young Mr. Palmer is to be here for the ball on Monday evening; at least his father is going to telegraph him to come."
"Is he?" said Mona, absently, while she appeared to be engrossed with something which she had suddenly discovered about the new morning robe. But the statement that Ray was coming to Hazeldean had given her an inward start that made every nerve in her body bound as if an electric current had been applied to them. "This skirt does not seem to hang just right," she added, dropping upon her knees, as if to ascertain the cause. "Ah! it was only caught up—it is all right now."
She smoothed the folds into place and arose, while, the breakfast-bell ringing at that moment, Mrs. Montague passed from the room, very nearly if not quite satisfied that Ruth Richards was an entirely different person from Mona Montague.
Poor over-wrought Mona, however, fled into her own chamber, and locked the door the moment she was alone.
She sank into the nearest chair, buried her face in her hands, and fell to sobbing nervously.
"How can I bear it?" she murmured. "It is perfectly dreadful to have to live such a life of deception. I never would have been guilty of it if I had not been caught just as I was; but I could not give her my real name, for she would have known at once who I am; and I do so want to find out just why my father deserted my mother, and what there was between him and Uncle Walter that was so terrible. Perhaps I never shall, but I mean to stay with her for a while and try. She is a strange woman," the young girl went on, musingly. "Sometimes I think she is kind and good, then again she seems like a designing and unprincipled person. Can it be possible that she is contemplating an alliance with Mr. Palmer? She certainly received his attentions last evening with every appearance of pleasure, and he seemed to be equally delighted with her society. I wonder if Ray will like it? Somehow the thought of it is not agreeable to me, if—if—"
A vivid blush suffused Mona's cheeks as she reached this point in her soliloquy, as if she was overcome at having allowed her thoughts to run away with her to such an extent.
"So Ray is coming to Hazeldean for the ball on Monday evening," she continued, after a while. "Shall I see him? Yes, I shall try to," with an air of resolution. "If he loves me as well as I love him, why should any foolish sensitiveness prevent my allowing him to make it manifest, if he wishes? I do not believe I have any right to ruin both our lives by hiding myself from him. I will prove him in this way; but I must see him alone, so that no one will know that I am Mona Montague, instead of Ruth Richards, the sewing-girl. What if he should ignore me?" she added, with sudden fear and growing very white; then, with renewed confidence: "He will not; if he has been noble enough to confess his feelings to his father, he will not hide them from me. He is noble and true, and I will not doubt him."