Diana could not resist a sigh of relief as her observant glance noted this detail.  A dignified butler ushered her into a reception room and departed with her card.

It was now that the visitor’s nose took an upward tendency as she critically examined her surroundings.  The furnishings were abominable, a mixture of distressingly new articles with those evidently procured from dealers in “antiquities.”  Money had been lavished here, but good taste was absent.  To understand this—­for Miss Von Taer gauged the condition truly—­it is necessary to know something of Mrs. Martha Merrick.

This lady, the relict of John Merrick’s only brother, was endowed with a mediocre mind and a towering ambition.  When left a widow with an only daughter she had schemed and contrived in endless ways to maintain an appearance of competency on a meager income.  Finally she divided her capital, derived from her husband’s life insurance, into three equal parts, which she determined to squander in three years in an attempt to hoodwink the world with the belief that she was wealthy.  Before the three years were ended her daughter Louise would be twenty, and by that time she must have secured a rich parti and been safely married.  In return for this “sacrifice” the girl was to see that her mother was made comfortable thereafter.

This worldly and foolish design was confided to Louise when she was only seventeen, and her unformed mind easily absorbed her mother’s silly ambition.  It was a pity, for Louise Merrick possessed a nature sweet and lovable, as well as instinctively refined—­a nature derived from her dead father and with little true sympathy with Mrs. Merrick’s unscrupulous schemes.  But at that age a girl is easily influenced, so it is little wonder that under such tuition Louise became calculating, sly and deceitful, to a most deplorable degree.

Such acquired traits bade fair in the end to defeat Mrs. Merrick’s carefully planned coup, for the daughter had a premature love affair with a youth outside the pale of eligibility.  Louise ignored the fact that he had been disinherited by his father, and in her reckless infatuation would have sacrificed her mother without thought or remorse.  The dreadful finale had only been averted by the advent of Uncle John Merrick, who had changed the life plans of the widow and her heedless daughter and promptly saved the situation.

John Merrick did not like his sister-in-law, but he was charmed by his lovely niece and took her at once to his affectionate old heart.  He saw the faults of Louise clearly, but also appreciated her sweeter qualities.  Under his skillful guidance she soon redeemed herself and regained control of her better nature.  The girl was not yet perfect, by any means; she was to an extent artificial and secretive, and her thoughtless flirtations were far from wise; but her two cousins and her uncle had come to know and understand her good points.  They not only bore patiently with her volatile nature but strove to influence her to demonstrate her inherent good qualities.