auty of a girl's face.

She stands in the large, handsome room, alone, a long, low room, with a
carpet of rich, dull crimson velvet, curtains of dull crimson satin
damask, papered walls, dull crimson, too. There are oil paintings in
gilded frames, ponderous mahogany chairs, tables and footstools; but
there is nothing bright in the apartment save the cheerful red fire. It
is all dark and oppressive--not even excepting the girl. The pale face
that looks gloomily out at the fast drifting sky, at the fast-fading
light, is smileless and sober as all the rest. And yet it is a youthful
face, a beautiful face, a face that six months ago bloomed with a
childish brightness and bloom, the face of Norine Bourdon.

It is close upon four months since she entered this house, as companion,
secretary, amanuensis, to Mr. Hugh Darcy. Now she stands here debating
within herself whether she shall go to him to-night and tell him she
must leave. She shrinks from the task. She has grown strangely old and
wise in these four months; she knows something of the world--something
of what it must be like to be adrift in New York, friendless and
penniless, with only eighteen years and a fair face for one's dangerous
dower. Friendless she will be; for in leaving she will deeply irritate
Mr. Darcy, deeply anger Mr. Liston, and in all the world, it seems to
Norine, there are only those two she can call friends.

And yet--friends! Can she call even them by that name? Mr. Liston is her
friend and protector so long as he thinks she will aid him in his
vengeance upon his enemy. Mr. Darcy--well, how long will Mr. Darcy be
her friend when he discovers how she has imposed upon him? That under a
false name and history she has sought the shelter of his roof--she, the
cast-off of his nephew? He likes her well--that she knows; he trusts
her, respects her--how much liking or respect will remain when he knows
her as she is?

"And know he shall," she says, inwardly, her lips compressed. "I cannot
carry on this deception longer. For the rest I would have to leave in
any case--_they_ return in May, and I cannot, I cannot meet them. Mr.
Liston may say what he pleases, it were easier to die than to stay on
and meet him again--like that."

She has not forgotten. Such first, passionate love as she gave Laurence
Thorndyke is not to be outlived and trampled out in four months; and yet
it is much more abhorrence than love that fills her heart with
bitterness now.

"The