rson whose
_status_ it will be difficult to decide from mere inspection. He is a
tall, large, coarse-featured, but well-proportioned man, with black
hair, inclining to curl, dark complexion, and very black eyes. His age
is possibly thirty. He is showily dressed, with a vast expanse of cravat
and waistcoat. Across the latter stretches a very heavy gold chain, to
which is attached a quantity of seals and other trinkets known as
charms. A massive ring, with coat of arms and crest carved on it,
encircles the little finger of the right hand. Every point of the dress
and toilet is in keeping with what I have already described. The hair
dresser has been devoted. There has been no stint of oil and pomade in
the arrangement of whiskers and mustache. In short, judging the
individual by a certain standard, which passes current with a good many
people, you would pronounce him remarkably well 'got up.'

Looking at the fine and delicate-featured girl, in whose surroundings
you behold evidences of so much taste and refinement, you could scarcely
be made to believe that the gross organization by her side is to her
liking. Yet I assure you she is in love with the handsome animal--'madly
in love' with him, as she herself avows!

This girl is the youngest of Hiram's three children. She is named for
her mother, but is called by all her acquaintance, Belle. And she is
_belle_ every way--except in temper and disposition. Resembling her
father so closely, she inherits her mother's jealous irritability and
tyrannical nature. She is beautiful only to look on. She is a spoiled
child besides.

I cannot avow that Hiram has any genuine parental affection. He is so
entirely absorbed in gathering in his harvests from the golden fields at
his command, that I think in God's providence this is denied to him.

[Else he would exhibit some tenderness and love for the poor, sinking
child who is lying in her chamber, with no companion but her nurse.]

But there is that about the youngest which commends itself (I know no
other way to express it) to his senses. She is fair and young, and
graceful and a beauty, and she resembles him; and he loves to look at
her and have her near him when he is at home, and to pet her, after a
sort.

Hiram is too much occupied, however, to attend at all to the well-being
of his children, and his wife 'has no taste for anything of the kind.'
So, as I said, Belle grows up a spoiled child. She has never been
subject to contr