"Ruth Richards, madame; call me Ruth, if you please."

"Hum! Ruth Richards--that's rather pretty," remarked the lady, but still searching the fair face before her with a look of curious interest.

"But," she added, "you look very young; I am afraid you are hardly experienced enough to be a very efficient seamstress," and the lady told herself that those delicate, rose-tipped fingers did not look as if they had been long accustomed to the use of a needle.

"I do not understand very much about dressmaking," Mona frankly replied, although she ignored the reference to her youthfulness; "but I can do plain sewing very nicely, and, indeed, almost anything that is planned for me. I distinctly stated at the office that I could neither cut nor fit."

"Well, I can but give you a trial," with a little sigh of disappointment, as if she regretted having engaged one so young; "and if you cannot fill the place, I shall have to try again, I suppose. But, see here! I caught the thread that fastened this lace to my skirt, and have ripped off nearly half a yard. I want you to replace it for me, and you must do it quickly, for I am a little late, as it is."

Mona dropped upon her knees beside the beautiful woman, threaded her needle with the silk which Mary brought her, and, though her fingers trembled and her heart beat with rapid, nervous throbs, she quickly repaired the damage, and in a manner to win commendation from Mrs.

Montague.

"You are very quick with your needle, and you have done it very nicely,"

she said, with a smile that revealed two rows of the most perfect teeth that Mona had ever seen. "And now tell me," she added, as she turned slowly around, "if everything about my costume is all right, then you may go."

"Yes," Mona returned; "it is perfect; it fits and hangs beautifully."

"That is the highest praise any one could give," Mrs. Montague responded, with another brilliant smile; "and I believe you are really a competent judge, since your own dress hasn't a wrinkle in it. Did you make it yourself?"

"I--I helped to make it. I told you I do not know how to fit," Mona answered, with a quick flush, and almost a feeling of guilt, for she had really done but very little work upon the simple black robe which had been made since her uncle's death.

"Well, I shall soon find out how much you do know," said the lady in a business-like tone. "You can begin upon those sheets and pillow slips to-morrow morning--Mary has told you, I suppose. That will be plain sewing, and you can manage it well enough by yourself. Now you may go,"

and the elegant woman turned to her dressing-case, gathered up an exquisite point-lace fan and handkerchief, while Mona stole softly out of the room and up to her own, where, no longer able to control the nervous excitement under which she was laboring, she wept herself to sleep.

The poor grief-stricken girl felt very desolate on this, her first night beneath a strange roof, and realized, as she had not before, that she was utterly alone in the world, and dependent upon the labor of her own hands for her future support.

Aside from the grief which she experienced in losing her uncle and the lovely home which for so many years had been hers, she was both wounded and mortified because of Ray Palmer's apparent indifference.

She could not understand it, for he had always seemed so innately good and n.o.ble that it was but natural she should expect some evidence of sympathy from him.

He had been so marked in his attentions to her during that evening at the opera, he had appeared so eager for her permission to call, and had implied, by both words and manner, that he found his greatest pleasure in her society, she felt she had a right to expect some condolence from him.

She had begun to believe--to hope that he entertained a more tender sentiment than that of mere friendship for her, and she had become conscious that love for him--and the strongest pa.s.sion of her nature--had taken deep root in her own heart.

How kind he had been to her that night--how thoughtful! antic.i.p.ating her every wish! How his glance and even the tones of his voice had softened and grown tender whenever their eyes had met, or he had spoken to her!

What, then, could be the meaning of his recent neglect? Could it be possible that it had been occasioned by the loss of her wealth?--that it had been simply the heiress of the wealthy Mr. Dinsmore in whom he had been interested, and now, having lost all, his regard for her had ceased?

It was a bitter thought, but she could a.s.sign no other reason for his strange silence and absence during her sorrow.

Must she resign all the sweet hopes that had begun to take form in her heart?--all the bright antic.i.p.ations in which he had borne so conspicuous a part?

Must she lose faith in one who had appeared to be so manly, so n.o.ble, and so high-minded?

It certainly seemed so, and thus the future looked all the darker before her, for, humiliating as it was to confess it, she knew that Ray Palmer was all the world to her; that life without him would be almost like a body without a soul, a world without a sun.

Her uncle's death had come upon her so like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, almost benumbing all her faculties with the grief it had hurled upon her so remorselessly, that she could think of nothing else until Mr.

Graves had come to her with that other fatal piece of news--the loss of her fortune.

She had scarcely looked into a daily paper until that evening, for she felt no interest in the outside world; she could apply her mind to nothing but her own afflictions; consequently, she had not known anything of the mysterious and exciting circ.u.mstances connected with Ray Palmer's sudden disappearance and the stolen diamonds. That little blind paragraph, which she had seen just before she was called down to Mrs.

Montague's room, was the only hint that she had had of any trouble or loss in the Palmer family.

So, of course, it is not strange that she so misjudged Ray; she could not know that only a great wrong kept him from speeding to her side to express the deepest interest and sympathy for her in her sorrow.

And it was well, perhaps, that she did not know, for it would only have added to her troubles and caused her greater suffering.

CHAPTER X.

MONA MEETS MRS. MONTAGUE'S NEPHEW.

The next morning, as soon as she had finished her breakfast, Mona asked Mary to conduct her to the sewing-room, and there she found a pile of work, which would have been exceedingly disheartening to a less resolute spirit.

But the young girl had bravely determined to do the best she could and not worry about the result.

Fate had willed that she must work for her living, and she had resolved not to murmur at her lot, but, putting forth all her energies, hope to please her employer and meet with success in her undertaking.

So she arranged her chair and table by a pleasant window overlooking the street, and then boldly attacked the mountain before her.

"I wonder if Mrs. Montague intends to have these done by hand or machine?" she mused, as she shook out the folds of snowy cloth and began to turn a hem on one of the sheets. "And then"--with a puzzled expression--"how am I to know how broad to make the hems?"

She feared to go on with the work without special directions, for she might make some mistake. But after considering the matter, she determined to leave the sheets altogether and do the over-and-over sewing on the pillow-slips, until she could ascertain Mrs. Montague's wishes.

Mona was naturally quick in all her movements, and, being also very persevering, she had accomplished considerable by ten o'clock, when Mrs. Montague, in an elegant morning _negligee_ of light-blue cashmere, and looking as lovely as an houri, strolled languidly into the sewing-room to see what her new seamstress was about.

"Oh, you are sewing up the slips," she remarked, as she nodded in reply to Mona's polite good morning and observed her employment. "I forgot to tell you about the hems last night, and I have been afraid ever since I awoke this morning that you would not make them broad enough."

"Yes, I feared I might make some mistake, so left them," Mona answered, but without stopping her work.

"How beautiful your seams look!" the lady said, as she examined some of the slips. "Your st.i.tches are very fine and even; but over-and-over sewing must be very monotonous work. You might vary it by hemming a sheet now and then. I want the hems three inches wide on both ends."

"Do you have them st.i.tched or done by hand?" Mona inquired.

"Oh, st.i.tched; I have a beautifully running machine, and I want to get them out of the way as soon as possible, for there is dressmaking to be done. Can you run a White machine?"

Mona was conscious that her companion was regarding her very earnestly during this conversation, but she appeared not to notice it, and replied:

"I never have, but if I could be shown how to thread it, I think I should have no difficulty."

She was very thankful to know that all that mountain before her was not to be done by hand.

"Do you like to sew?" Mrs. Montague inquired, as she watched the girl's pretty hand in its deft manipulation of the needle.

Mona smiled sadly.

"I used to think I did," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "but when one is obliged to do one thing continually it becomes monotonous and irksome."