than the connection formed between
the Neuchatel family and Myra Ferrars. Both parties to the compact were
alike satisfied. Myra had "got out of that hole" which she always hated;
and though the new life she had entered was not exactly the one she
had mused over, and which was founded on the tradition of her early
experience, it was a life of energy and excitement, of splendour and
power, with a total absence of petty vexations and miseries, affording
neither time nor cause for the wearing chagrin of a monotonous and
mediocre existence. But the crowning joy of her emancipation was the
prospect it offered of frequent enjoyment of the society of her brother.

With regard to the Neuchatels, they found in Myra everything they could
desire. Mrs. Neuchatel was delighted with a companion who was not the
daughter of a banker, and whose schooled intellect not only comprehended
all her doctrines, however abstruse or fanciful, but who did not
hesitate, if necessary, to controvert or even confute them. As for
Adriana, she literally idolised a friend whose proud spirit and clear
intelligence were calculated to exercise a strong but salutary influence
over her timid and sensitive nature. As for the great banker himself,
who really had that faculty of reading character which his wife
flattered herself she possessed, he had made up his mind about Myra from
the first, both from her correspondence and her conversation. "She has
more common sense than any woman I ever knew, and more," he would add,
"than most men. If she were not so handsome, people would find it
out; but they cannot understand that so beautiful a woman can have
a headpiece, that, I really believe, could manage the affairs in
Bishopsgate Street."

In the meantime life at Hainault resumed its usual course; streams
of guests, of all parties, colours, and classes, and even nations.
Sometimes Mr. Neuchatel would say, "I really must have a quiet day that
Miss Ferrars may dine with us, and she shall ask her brother. How glad I
shall be when she goes into half-mourning! I scarcely catch a glimpse of
her." And all this time his wife and daughter did nothing but quote her,
which was still more irritating, for, as he would say, half-grumbling
and half-smiling, "If it had not been for me she would not have been
here."

At first Adriana would not dine at table without Myra, and insisted on
sharing her imprisonment. "It does not look like a cell," said Myra,
surveying, not without