y as any
princess."

"Take care, Granville; imagination has cantered away with your
penetration. Salome's family were coarse and common, though doubtless
honest people. Her father was a drunken miller, who died in an attack
of delirium tremens, and left his children as a legacy to the county.
I merely mention these deplorable facts to show you that your boasted
penetration is not entirely infallible."

"Miller or millionaire,--the girl would grace any court in Europe, and
only lacks a dash of _aplomb_ to make her irresistible. I have seen
few faces that attracted and interested me so powerfully."

"Yes, she certainly is very handsome; but I do not agree with you in
thinking that she lacks _aplomb_. Granville, if you have finished your
cigar, we will adjourn to the parlor, where the ladies are taking
their tea."

Dr. Grey collected his letters and walked away, followed by his guest;
and, a moment after, a low, scornful laugh, floated in through the
window which opened on the little flower-garden.

Miss Jane had requested Salome to gather the seeds of some apple and
nutmeg geraniums that were arranged on a shelf near the western window
of the library; and, while stooping over the china jars, and screened
from observation by a spreading lilac-bush, the girl had heard the
conversation relative to herself.

Excessive vanity had never been numbered among the faults that marred
her character, but Dr. Grey's indifference to personal attractions,
which strangers admitted so readily, piqued, and thoroughly aroused a
feeling that was destined to bring countless errors and misfortunes in
its train; and, henceforth,--

"There was not a high thing out of heaven,
Her pride o'ermastereth not."

Hitherto the love of one man had been the only boon she craved of
heaven; but now, conscious that the darling hope of her life was
crushed and withering under Dr. Grey's relentless feet, she resolved
that the admiration of the world should feed her insatiable hunger,--a
maddening hunger which one tender word from his true lips would have
assuaged,--but which she began to realize he would never utter.

During the last eighteen hours, a mournful change had taken place in
her heart, where womanly tenderness was rapidly retreating before
unwomanly hate, bitterness, and blasphemous defiance; and she laughed
scornfully at the "idiocy" that led her to weary heaven with prayers
for the preservation of a life that must ever run as an asym