te--of that clear yellow
of the sunset-sky that looks like the 'scaped spirit of miser-smothered
gold: this she clasped upon one arm; and when she had fastened a pair
of some ancient Mortimer's garnet buckles in her shoes, which she had
insisted should be black, and taken off all the rings that Hesper had
just put on, except a certain glorious sapphire, she led her again to
the mirror; and, if there Hesper was far more pleased with herself than
was reasonable or lovely, my reader needs not therefore fear a sermon
from the text, "Beauty is only skin-deep," for that text is out of the
devil's Bible. No Baal or Astarte is the maker of beauty, but the same
who made the seven stars and Orion, and His works are past finding out.
If only the woman herself and her worshipers knew how deep it is! But
the woman's share in her own beauty may be infinitely less than
skin-deep; and there is but one greater fool than the man who worships
that beauty--the woman who prides herself upon it, as if she were the
fashioner and not the thing fashioned.

But poor Hesper had much excuse, though no justification. She had had
many of the disadvantages and scarce one of the benefits of poverty.
She had heard constantly from childhood the most worldly and greedy
talk, the commonest expression of abject dependence on the favors of
Mammon, and thus had from the first been in preparation for _marrying
money_. She had been taught no other way of doing her part to procure
the things of which the Father knows we have need. She had never earned
a dinner; had never done or thought of doing a day's work--of offering
the world anything for the sake of which the world might offer her a
shilling to do it again; she had never dreamed of being of any use,
even to herself; she had learned to long for money, but had never been
hungry, never been cold: she had sometimes felt shabby. Out of it all
she had brought but the knowledge that this matter of beauty, with
which, by some blessed chance, she was endowed, was worth much precious
money in the world's market--worth all the dresses she could ever
desire, worth jewels and horses and servants, adoration and
adulation--everything, in fact, the world calls fine, and the devil
offers to those who, unscared by his inherent ugliness, will fall down
and worship him.

CHAPTER XXX.

A SCOLDING.

The Evening Star found herself a success--that is, much followed by the
men and much complimented by the women. Her