Be patient, please, while I
tell you how it all happened. It--it is a hard task, yet, perhaps, you
may think better of me from a knowledge of the whole truth. I am a
Chicago girl. There are reasons why I shall not mention my family
name, and it is unnecessary; but my parents are wealthy and of good
position. All my earlier education was acquired through private
tutors; so that beyond my little, narrow circle of a world--fashionable
and restricted--all of real life remained unknown, unexplored, until
the necessity for a wider development caused my being sent to a
well-known boarding-school for girls in the East. I think now the
choice made was unfortunate. The school being situated close to a
large city, and the discipline extremely lax, temptation which I was
not in any way fitted to resist surrounded me from the day of entrance.
In a fashionable drawing-room, in the home of my mother's friends, I
first became acquainted with Mr. Farnham."
She paused with the mention of his name, as though its utterance pained
her, yet almost immediately resumed her story, not even glancing up at
her listener.
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