s time on business, for a firm with which he had
lately connected himself, and on the few occasions of his presence at
Monfort Hall treated me with marked formality.

Evelyn had affected to make light of Mr. Bainrothe's outrage toward me,
though far from defending him. "Men of his years do these things
sometimes," she said, "under the mask of playfulness and fatherly
feeling, and, however unpleasant it may be to bear them, one has to pass
them over. You are right, of course, to be reserved with him henceforth,
Miriam. By-the-by, dear child, your prudery is excessive, I fear, and it
makes a young girl, especially if she is not beautiful, so ridiculous!
But, of course, that even is far better than the opposite extreme. Now,
I flatter myself, I know how to steer the _juste milieu_, always so
desirable."

"But, Evelyn," I had rejoined, "his manner was atrocious! I could not--I
would not if I could--give you any idea of its _animality_; yes, that is
the very word! it makes my blood creep to think of it, even!"

And I hid my face in my hands, crimson as it was from the
retrospection.

"Then don't think of it at all. That will be the best way, decidedly,"
she had said, tapping me playfully with her fan, then whispering: "This
lover of yours may be useful to us, you know; let us not goad him to
rebellion. You can be as cool as you please, Miriam, but be civil all
the same."

I surveyed her with flashing eyes. "Such advice," I retorted, "falls but
poorly from your lips, Evelyn Erle, whom my mistaken father dubbed
'propriety personified.' One woman should feel for another's wounded
delicacy, even if a stranger; but, when it comes to sisters, O Evelyn!"

"And such insolence falls very absurdly from you, Miriam Monfort, under
the circumstances. Sisters, indeed!" she sneered. "It was a claim you
repudiated once!" and, with a sweeping bow, she left me, to repeat
"sisters, indeed!" in my bitter solitude.

What were these circumstances to which she so haughtily referred? With
my heavy head resting on my weary hands, I sat and contemplated
them--ay, looked them fully in the face! Outwardly, matters stood just
as they had ever done.

The same circle of servants--of acquaintances--revolved around us. The
house was unchanged, the living identically the same, even to the one
bottle of fine wine per day, carefully withdrawn from the cobwebbed
cellar by Morton, and as carefully decanted for our table.

But this alone, of all the vi