True Loves Reward | Page 8

I found this picture lying beneath it. I was
very much startled to find how much it resembles me. Who can she be,
Mrs. Montague?" and Mona lifted a pair of innocently wondering eyes
to the frowning face above her.
For a moment the woman seemed to be trying to read her very soul;
then she remarked, through her set teeth:
"It is more like you, or you are more like it than I thought. Did you
never see a picture like it before?"
"No, never," Mona replied, so positively that Mrs. Montague could not
doubt the truth of her statement. "Is it the likeness of some relative of
yours?" she asked, determined if possible to sift the matter to the
bottom.
"A _relative? No_, I hope not. The girl's name was Mona Forester,
and--I hated her!"
"Mona Forester!" repeated Mona to herself, with a great inward start,
though she made no outward sign, while a feeling of bitter
disappointment swept over her heart.

It could not then have been a picture of her mother, she thought, for her
name must have been Mona Dinsmore, unless--strange that she had not
thought of it when she read that advertisement in the paper--unless she
had been the half-sister of her Uncle Walter.
"You hated _her_?" Mona murmured aloud, with her tender, devouring
glance fastened upon the beautiful face.
The tone and emphasis seemed to arouse all the passion of the woman's
nature.
"Yes, with my whole soul!" she fiercely cried, and before Mona was
aware of her intention, she had snatched the picture from her hands,
and torn it into four pieces.
"There!" she continued, tossing the fragments upon the floor, "that is
the last of that; I am sure! I don't know why I have kept the miserable
thing all these years."
Mona could have cried aloud at this wanton destruction of what she
would have regarded as priceless, but she dared make no sign, although
she was trembling in every nerve.
"Is the lady living?" she ventured to inquire, as she turned away,
apparently to fold a dress, but really to conceal the painful quivering of
her lips.
"No. You can finish packing this trunk, then you may take these dresses
to the sewing-room. You may begin ripping this brown one. And you
may take the pieces of that picture down and tell Mary to burn them. I
came up for a wrap; I am going for a drive."
Mrs. Montague secured her wrap, then swept from the room, walking
fiercely over the torn portrait, looking as if she would have been glad to
trample thus upon the living girl whom she had so hated.
Mona reverently gathered up the fragments, her lips quivering with
pain and indignation.

She laid them carefully together, but a bitter sob burst from her at the
sight of the great ragged tears across the beautiful face.
"Oh, mother, mother!" she murmured, "what an insult to you, and I was
powerless to help it."
She finished her packing, then taking the dresses that were to be made
over, and the torn picture, she went below.
She could not bear the thought of having that lovely face, marred
though it was, consigned to the flames, yet she dare not disobey Mrs.
Montague's command to give it to Mary to be burned.
She waited until the girl came up stairs, then she called her attention to
the pieces, and told her what was to be done with them.
She at once exclaimed at the resemblance to Mona.
"Where could Mrs. Montague have got it?" she cried; "it's enough like
you, miss, to be your own mother, and a beautiful lady she must have
been, too. It's a pity to burn the picture, Miss Ruth; wouldn't you like to
keep it?"
"Perhaps Mrs. Montague would prefer that no one should have it; she
said it was to be destroyed, you know," Mona replied, but with a
wistful look at the mutilated crayon.
"You shall have it if you want it, and I'll fix it all right with her," said
the girl, in a confidential tone, as she put the pieces back into Mona's
hands. She had become very fond of the gentle seamstress, and would
have considered no favor too great to be conferred upon her.
That same afternoon, when Mona went out for her walk, she took the
mutilated picture with her.
She made her way directly to the rooms of a first-class photographer,
and asked if the portrait could be copied.
Yes, she was assured; there would be no difficulty about getting as

good a picture as the original, only it would have to be all hand work.
Mona said she would give the order if it could be done immediately,
and, upon being told she could have the