yself! Remember the manner in which that
man is treating me, when all the world has been told of my engagement
to him! When I think of it my heart is so bitter that I am inclined
to throw, not the diamonds, but myself from off the rocks. All that
remains to me is the triumph of getting the better of my enemies. Mr.
Camperdown shall never have the diamonds. Even if they could prove
that they did not belong to me, they should find them--gone."

"I don't think they can prove it."

"I'll flaunt them in the eyes of all of them till they do; and
then--they shall be gone. And I'll have such revenge on Lord Fawn
before I have done with him, that he shall know that it may be worse
to have to fight a woman than a man. Oh, Frank, I do not think that I
am hard by nature, but these things make a woman hard." As she spoke
she took his hand in hers, and looked up into his eyes through her
tears. "I know that you do not care for me, and you know how much I
care for you."

"Not care for you, Lizzie?"

"No;--that little thing at Richmond is everything to you. She is tame
and quiet,--a cat that will sleep on the rug before the fire, and
you think that she will never scratch. Do not suppose that I mean to
abuse her. She was my dear friend before you had ever seen her. And
men, I know, have tastes which we women do not understand. You want
what you call--repose."

"We seldom know what we want, I fancy. We take what the gods send
us." Frank's words were perhaps more true than wise. At the present
moment the gods had clearly sent Lizzie Eustace to him, and unless he
could call up some increased strength of his own, quite independent
of the gods,--or of what we may perhaps call chance,--he would have
to put up with the article sent.

Lizzie had declared that she would not touch Lord Fawn with a pair of
tongs, and in saying so had resolved that she could not and would not
now marry his lordship even were his lordship in her power. It had
been decided by her as quickly as thoughts flash, but it was decided.
She would torture the unfortunate lord, but not torture him by
becoming his wife. And, so much being fixed as the stars in heaven,
might it be possible that she should even yet induce her cousin to
take the place that had been intended for Lord Fawn? After all that
had passed between them she need hardly hesitate to tell him of her
love. And with the same flashing thoughts she declared to herself
that she did love him, and that theref