ed into womanhood,
there would have been rich food for scandal in these visits; for the
girl was unquestionably their sole object, although her father was
supposed always to be present. But, it must likewise be added, there
was something about Priscilla that calumny could not meddle with; and
thus far was she privileged, either by the preponderance of what was
spiritual, or the thin and watery blood that left her cheek so pallid.

Yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared Priscilla in one
way, they made themselves amends by renewed and wilder babble on
another score. They averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard,
and that he had taken advantage of Priscilla's lack of earthly
substance to subject her to himself, as his familiar spirit, through
whose medium he gained cognizance of whatever happened, in regions near
or remote. The boundaries of his power were defined by the verge of
the pit of Tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere of the
celestial world on the other. Again, they declared their suspicion
that the wizard, with all his show of manly beauty, was really an aged
and wizened figure, or else that his semblance of a human body was only
a necromantic, or perhaps a mechanical contrivance, in which a demon
walked about. In proof of it, however, they could merely instance a
gold band around his upper teeth, which had once been visible to
several old women, when he smiled at them from the top of the
governor's staircase. Of course this was all absurdity, or mostly so.
But, after every possible deduction, there remained certain very
mysterious points about the stranger's character, as well as the
connection that he established with Priscilla. Its nature at that
period was even less understood than now, when miracles of this kind
have grown so absolutely stale, that I would gladly, if the truth
allowed, dismiss the whole matter from my narrative.

We must now glance backward, in quest of the beautiful daughter of
Fauntleroy's prosperity. What had become of her? Fauntleroy's only
brother, a bachelor, and with no other relative so near, had adopted
the forsaken child. She grew up in affluence, with native graces
clustering luxuriantly about her. In her triumphant progress towards
womanhood, she was adorned with every variety of feminine
accomplishment. But she lacked a mother's care. With no adequate
control, on any hand (for a man, however stern, however wise, can never
sway and gui