--as a thing of value, but as a chattel of which she could
not bring herself to be proud. Might it be possible that she should
win for herself by her beauty some position in the world less
burdensome, more joyous than that of a governess, and less dependent
than that of a daily recipient of her uncle's charity?

She had had lovers in the West Indies,--perhaps a score of them,
but they had been nothing to her. Her father's house had been so
constituted that it had been impossible for her to escape the very
plainly spoken admiration of captains, lieutenants, and Colonial
secretaries. In the West Indies gentlemen do speak so very plainly,
on, or without, the smallest encouragement, that ladies accept such
speaking much as they do in England the attention of a handkerchief
lifted or an offer for a dance. It had all meant nothing to Mary
Bonner, who from her earliest years of girlhood had been accustomed
to captains, lieutenants, and even to midshipmen. But, through it
all, she had grown up with serious thoughts, and something of a
conviction that love-making was but an ugly amusement. As far as it
had been possible she had kept herself aloof from it, and though run
after for her beauty, had been unpopular as being a "proud, cold,
meaningless minx." When her father died she would speak to no one;
and then it had been settled among the captains, lieutenants, and
Colonial secretaries that she was a proud, cold, meaningless minx.
And with this character she left the island. Now there came to her,
naturally I say, this question;--What lovers might she find in
England, and, should she find lovers, how should she deal with them?
There are among us many who tell us that no pure-minded girl should
think of finding a lover,--should only deal with him, when he comes,
as truth, and circumstances, and parental control may suggest to her.
If there be girls so pure, it certainly seems that no human being
expects to meet them. Such was not the purity of Mary Bonner,--if
pure she was. She did think of some coming lover,--did hope that
there might be for her some prosperity of life as the consequence of
the love of some worthy man whom she, in return, might worship. And
then there had come Ralph Newton the heir.

Now to Mary Bonner,--as also to Clarissa Underwood, and to Patience,
and to old Mrs. Brownlow, and a great many others, Ralph the heir
did not appear in quite those colours which he probably will in
the reader's eyes. These ladies