lack to rusty brown; the straw hat which shaded her face was sunburnt;
the ribbons had lost their brightness; but there was an air of
attempted fashion in the puffings and trimmings of her alpaca skirt;
and there was evidence of a struggle with poverty in the tight-fitting
lavender gloves, whose streaky lines bore witness to the imperfection
of the cleaner's art. Elegant Parisians and the select of Brussels
glanced at the military Englishman and his handsome daughter with some
slight touch of supercilious surprise--one has no right to find
shabbily-dressed young women in the golden temple--and it is scarcely
necessary to state that it was from her own countrywomen the young
person in alpaca received the most chilling glances. But those Parthian
arrows shot from feminine eyes had little power to wound their object
just now. The girl looked up from her perforated card very seldom; and
when she raised her eyes, it was always to look in one
direction--towards the great glass doors opening from the outer saloon.
Loungers came and went; the doors swung open and closed again as
noiselessly as it is possible for well-regulated doors to open and
shut; footsteps sounded on the polished floors; and sometimes when the
young person in alpaca lifted her eyes, a passing shadow of
disappointment darkened her face. A modern Laurence Sterne, on a new
Sentimental Journey, might have derived some interest from the study of
the girl's countenance; but the reflective and observant traveller is
not to be encountered very often in this age of excursionists; and
Maria and her goat may roam the highways and byways for a long time
before she will find any dreamy loiterer with a mind attuned to
sympathy.

The shabbily-dressed girl was looking for some one. She watched her
father's play carefully--she marked her card with unfailing precision;
but she performed these duties with a mechanical air; and it was only
when she lifted her eyes to the great shining plate-glass doors which
opened into this dangerous Paradise, that any ray of feeling animated
her countenance. She was looking for some one, and the person watched
for was so long coming. Ah, how difficult for the arithmetician to
number the crushing disappointments, the bitter agonies that one woman
can endure in a single half-hour! This girl was so young--so young; and
already she had learnt to suffer.

The man played with the concentrated attention and the impassible
countenance of an experi