ut she could not pay it, nor
could she ask her father to do so. She was ruined; but the ball, and Mr.
Ashley--these still awaited her; so presently she worked herself up to
some anticipation of enjoyment, and, having thrown on her cloak, was
turning down her light preparatory to departure, when her eye fell on
the bill lying open on her dresser.

It would never do to leave it there--never do to leave it anywhere in
her room. There were prying eyes in the house, and she was as ashamed of
that bill as she might have been of a contemplated theft. So she tucked
it in her corsage and went down to join her friends in the carriage.

The rest we know, all but one small detail which turned to gall whatever
enjoyment she was able to get out of the early evening. There was a
young girl present, dressed in a simple muslin gown. While looking at it
and inwardly contrasting it with her own splendor, Mr. Ashley passed by
with another gentleman and she heard him say:

"How much better young girls look in simple white than in the elaborate
silks only suitable for their mothers!"

Thoughtless words, possibly forgotten as soon as uttered, but they
sharply pierced this already sufficiently stricken and uneasy breast and
were the cause of the tears which had aroused my suspicion when I came
upon her in the library, standing with her face to the night.

But who can say whether, if the evening had been devoid of these
occurrences and no emotions of contrition and pity had been awakened in
her behalf in the breast of her chivalrous host, she would ever have
become Mrs. Ashley?

THE HERMIT OF ---- STREET

CHAPTER I

I COMMIT AN INDISCRETION

I should have kept my eyes for the many brilliant and interesting sights
constantly offered me. I might have done so, had I been ever eighteen,
or had I not come from the country.

I was visiting in a house where fashionable people made life a perpetual
holiday. Yet of all the pleasures which followed so rapidly, one upon
another, the greatest was the hour I spent in my window after the day's
dissipations were all over, watching a man's face, bending night after
night over a study-table in the lower room of the great house in our
rear.

Why did it affect me so? It was not a young face, but it was very
handsome, and it was enigmatic.

The day following my arrival in the city I had noticed the large house
in our rear, and had asked some questions about it. It had a peculiarly
secluded