not to be vanquished. There was nothing in her
appearance that indicated this hardihood: she was a fair, slight girl,
whose features were feminine almost to childishness. The gray-blue
eyes, shaded with deep lashes; the beautifully formed mouth, on which
a half-saucy smile so often played; a half-timid expression conveyed
in the ever-changing color of her cheek,--suggested the expression of
a highly impressionable and undecided nature; yet this frail, delicate
girl, whose birdlike voice reminded one of childhood, swayed and ruled
all her companions. She added to these personal graces abilities of a
high order. Skilled in every accomplishment, she danced and sang and
drew and played better than her fellows; she spoke several modern
languages fluently, and even caught up their local dialects with a
quickness quite marvellous. She could warble the Venetian barcarole with
all the soft accents of an Adriatic tongue, or sing the Bauerlied of the
Tyrol with every cadence of the peasant's fancy. With a memory so
retentive that she could generally repeat what she had once read over
attentively, she had powers of mimicry that enabled her to produce at
will everything noticeable that crossed her. A vivid fancy, too, threw
its glittering light over all these faculties, so that even the
commonplace incidents of daily life grouped themselves dramatically in
her mind, and events the least striking were made the origin of
situation and sentiment, brilliant with wit and poetry.

[Illustration: 206]

Great as all these advantages were, they were aided, and not
inconsiderably, by other and adventitious ones. She was reputed to be a
great heiress. How and when and why this credit attached to her, it were
hard to say; assuredly she had never given it any impulse. She spoke,
indeed, constantly of her father--her only living relation--as of one
who never grudged her any indulgence, and she showed her schoolfellows
the handsome presents which from time to time he sent her; these in
their costliness--so unlike the gifts common to her age--may possibly
have assisted the belief in her great wealth. But however founded, the
impression prevailed that she was to be the possessor of millions,
and in the course of destiny, to be what her companions called her in
jest--a Princess.

Nor did the designation seem ill applied. Of all the traits her nature
exhibited, none seemed so conspicuous as that of "birth." The admixture
of timidity and haughtines