ly, because it tells us of decay, and is the
harbinger of death. This was such a day, and Mary Bonner, as she
hurried into a shrubbery walk, where she could wander unseen, felt
both the sadness and the softness of the season. There was a path
which ran from the front gate of the villa grounds through shrubs
and tall evergreens down to the river, and was continued along the
river-bank up through the flower-garden to windows opening from the
drawing-room. Here she walked alone for more than an hour, turning as
she came to the river in order that she might not be seen from the
house.

Mary Bonner, of whose character hitherto but little has been said,
was, at any rate, an acute observer. Very soon after her first
introduction to Ralph the heir,--Ralph who had for so many years been
the intimate friend of the Underwood family,--she perceived something
in the manner of that very attractive young man which conveyed
to her a feeling that, if she so pleased, she might count him as
an admirer of her own. She had heard then, as was natural, much
of the brilliance of his prospects, and but little,--as was also
natural,--of what he had done to mar them. And she also perceived,
or fancied that she perceived, that her cousin Clary gave many of
her thoughts to the heir. Now Mary Bonner understood the importance
to herself of a prosperous marriage, as well as any girl ever did
understand its great significance. She was an orphan, living in fact
on the charity of her uncle. And she was aware that having come
to her uncle's house when all the weakness and attractions of her
childhood were passed, she could have no hold on him or his such as
would have been hers had she grown to be a woman beneath his roof.
There was a thoughtfulness too about her,--a thoughtfulness which
some, perhaps, may call worldliness,--which made it impossible for
her not to have her own condition constantly in her mind. In her
father's lifetime she had been driven by his thoughtlessness and her
own sterner nature to think of these things; and in the few months
that had passed between her father's death and her acceptance in
her uncle's house she had taught herself to regard the world as an
arena in which she must fight a battle by her own strength with such
weapons as God had given to her. God had, indeed, given to her many
weapons, but she knew but of one. She did know that God had made
her very beautiful. But she regarded her beauty after an unfeminine
fashion,