iss Laura
Lytton.

"The third approaching nuptials interest me least of all, in any
manner. A dark, brigandish-looking Californian, of almost
fabulous wealth, who is the friend and guest of Mr. Lyle, has
evidently fallen in love at first sight with pretty little
sparkling Electra Coroni.

"They have all gone down to Wendover together, and the Lyttons
are to make a long visit at Blue Cliffs.

"I must not forget to tell you that worthy young man, Mr. Kyte,
has been here inquiring after you with much anxiety. He went back
to Wendover a day or two before our young people left.

"Now, my dearest Mary, let me hear that you are well, and believe
me ever your devoted friend,

"MARIA WHEATFIELD."

CHAPTER XXIII.

A DIABOLICAL PLOT.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream;
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
--SHAKESPEARE'S _Julius Caesar_.

No language can adequately describe the mortification and rage that
filled the bosom of Mary Grey as she read the foregoing letter.

Two of her once ardent worshipers--handsome Alden Lytton and eloquent
Stephen Lyle--had forsaken her shrine and were offering up their
devotion to other divinities.

They had wounded her vanity to the very quick.

And to wound Mary Grey's vanity was to incur Mary Grey's deadly hatred.

She was always a very dangerous woman, and under such an exasperation
she could become a very desperate enemy.

She had felt so sure that no woman, however young and lovely, could ever
become her rival, or even her successor, in any man's affections. So
sure, also, that no man, however wise and strong, could ever resist her
fascinations or escape from her thraldom.

And now that charming illusion was rudely dispelled! She saw herself
even contemptuously abandoned by her subjects, who transferred their
allegiance to a couple of "bread-and-butter school-girls," as she
sneeringly designated Emma Cavendish and Laura Lytton.

She was consumed with jealousy--not the jealousy born of love, which is
like the thorn of the rose, a defence of the rose--but the jealousy born
of self-love, which is like the thorn of the thorn-apple, a deadly
poison.

She sat on one of her trunks,