elicited the
fatal fact that some branch of the family had once been accused of
embezzlement, had been prosecuted by Erle Palma, and in defiance of
his efforts to convict him had been acquitted. Mamma and your
guardian possessed then, as now, only one criterion:

'He is .poor, and that's suspicious; he is unknown,
And that's defenceless!'

Then and there they sternly prohibited even my acquaintance with one
to whom I had promised all that woman can give of affection, faith,
and deathless constancy. No more pity or regard was shown to my agony
of heart and mind than the cattle drover manifests in driving
innocent dumb horned creatures from quiet clover meadows where they
browsed in peace, to the reeking public shambles. Even a parting
interview was denied me; but clandestinely I found an opportunity to
renew my vows, to assure Belmont that no power on earth should compel
me to renounce him, and that if necessary I would wait twenty years
for him to claim me. Older and wiser than I, he realized what
stretched before me, and while repeatedly assuring me his love was
inextinguishable, he generously attempted to dissuade me from defying
those who had legal control of me. So we parted, pledged irrevocably
one to the other; and whenever we have met since that summer, it has
been by strategy. My mother, from the day when the doom of my love
was decreed, has been as deaf to my pleadings, and my heart-breaking
cries, as the golden calf was to the indignant denunciations of
Moses. I was hurried prematurely into society, thrown into a
maelstrom of gaiety that whirled me as though I were a dancing
dervish, and left me apparently no leisure for retrospection or
regret, or for the indulgence of the rosy dream that lay like a
lovely morning cloud above and behind me. My clothing was costly and
tasteful; I was exhibited at Saratoga, Long Branch, and Newport,
those popular human expositions, where wealth and fashion flock to
display and compare their textile fabrics and jewellery, as less
'developed' cattle still on four feet are hurried to State fairs, to
ascertain the value of their pearly short horns, thin tails, and
satin-coated skins. No expense or pains were spared, and my mother's
stepson certainly lavished his money as well as advice upon me. At
long intervals I had stolen interviews with Belmont, then he went far
south to study for a tropical landscape, and was absent two years.
When he returned, beaming wi