teen he had attained quite a nice taste in millinery from
his frequent purchases for Georgy. Mrs. Lenox always had a fit of
weeping when such presents came and were displayed by Georgy as
trophies, for she was still too proud not to be cut deeply by every
fresh humiliation; but her belief in her daughter's future carried her
through the present, and she pacified her scruples in regard to her
course with Jack or anybody else who made outlay for her daughter by
remembering that all such services would be balanced by and by when the
natural order of things had been restored.

All in Belfield knew both Mrs. Lenox and Georgy so well--their history,
the miserable shortcomings of their home, the girl's scanty education
both of intellect and morals--that we could but attribute their faults
to sheer worldliness combined with the evils of their bitter poverty.
Jack and myself, at least, with the most meagre excuse readily forgave
Georgy everything. She was so beautiful, so radiant in all the phases of
her dingy life, so good-natured even in her contempt of our stupidity
and dulness, so eager to find enjoyment in everything, that we were
willing to accept all her faults with her charms, to love her
idolatrously, and blame ourselves for harshness if we were momentarily
angry with the lovely creature.

We had all, even Georgy, been reasonably happy in Belfield until Mr.
Floyd and Antonio Thorpe came. My guardian's influence I will speak of
later, for it touched only myself perhaps; but Tony's was felt more or
less by us all. He widened our horizons at once, and, as usual, enlarged
our imaginations at the expense of our belief in ourselves. We were not
used exactly to be complimented on our ignorance of the world, but in
Belfield habits of thought tended toward a pleasant conviction of the
uselessness of all knowledge and experience that our best inhabitants
did not happen to possess. Until Tony came we were in the habit of
deploring the fate of people who were not born and brought up in
Belfield. Almost the entire population were descendants of the original
proprietors of the soil, and we had our own ideas about our first
families. Thorpe's views, however, were not flattering: he was, in fact,
one of those elegant young men whose innermost souls are penetrated with
convictions of the inadequacy of intellects in general to appreciate
theirs in particular.

Both Jack and I passed sleepless nights at first, wretched at the
thought o