Ardworth and Gabriel
Varney.

Madame Dalibard watched vigilantly the countenance and manner of
Ardworth when, after presenting him to Percival, she whispered: "I am
glad you assured me as to your sentiments for Helen. She had found there
the lover you wished for her,--'gay and handsome as herself.'"

And in the sudden paleness that overspread Ardworth's face, in his
compressed lips and convulsive start, she read with unspeakable rage the
untold secret of his heart, till the rage gave way to complacency at the
thought that the last insult to her wrongs was spared her,--that her son
(as son she believed he was) could not now, at least, be the successful
suitor of her loathed sister's loathed child. Her discovery, perhaps,
confirmed her in her countenance to Percival's progressive wooing, and
half reconciled her to the pangs it inflicted on herself.

At the first introduction Ardworth had scarcely glanced at Percival. He
regarded him but as the sleek flutterer in the sunshine of fortune.
And for the idle, the gay, the fair, the well-dressed and wealthy, the
sturdy workman of his own rough way felt something of the uncharitable
disdain which the laborious have-nots too usually entertain for the
prosperous haves. But the moment the unwelcome intelligence of Madame
Dalibard was conveyed to him, the smooth-faced boy swelled into dignity
and importance.

Yet it was not merely as a rival that that strong, manly heart, after
the first natural agony, regarded Percival. No, he looked upon him less
with anger than with interest,--as the one in whom Helen's happiness was
henceforth to be invested. And to Madame Dalibard's astonishment,--for
this nature was wholly new to her experience,--she saw him, even in
that first interview, composing his rough face to smiles, smoothing his
bluff, imperious accents into courtesy, listening patiently, watching
benignly, and at last thrusting his large hand frankly forth, griping
Percival's slender fingers in his own; and then, with an indistinct
chuckle that seemed half laugh and half groan, as if he did not dare to
trust himself further, he made his wonted unceremonious nod, and strode
hurriedly from the room.

But he came again and again, almost daily, for about a fortnight.
Sometimes, without entering the house, he would join the young people in
the garden, assist them with awkward hands in their playful work on the
garden, or sit with them in the ivied bower; and warming more and more
e