gold in the sun,” falling, like his, over a brow of sculptured ivory.  I was not alone in my appreciation of her loveliness.  It was a theme of universal remark.  Even Mr. Bainrothe, who could never forgive my father for having married his children’s governess, confessed that she had the “air noble,” which he valued far above beauty.  “And where she got it from, Miriam, is sufficiently plain,” he said, one day, glancing at me with undisguised admiration as he spoke.  “Her mother was simple and unpretending enough, Heaven above knows, but you Monforts, and you, especially, Miriam, are truly distingue, which is a word that cannot often be justly applied in any land to man or woman either.”

“By-the-by, Miriam,” he continued, “you are growing into a very beautiful woman, after a somewhat unpromising childhood.  You surpass Evelyn as rubies do garnets, or diamonds aqua marine, or sapphires the opaque turquoise.  You do, indeed, my dear,” and he attempted to take my hand in the old fashion.  I murmured something indicative of my disapprobation.

“It is an exquisite hand!” he remarked, as I coldly drew it away; “I have an artist’s eye, and can admire beauty in the abstract, even though I am an old man, you know.”

“Admire it also at a distance, I beg, hereafter,” I said, bowing coldly, smiling very bitterly, I fear, with lips white with anger and disgust.

“Those scars, Miriam!” he went on, as if unobservant of my manner, yet with the old sarcastic gleam in his eyes, in the most audacious way, “have nearly disappeared, have they not?  I think I understood so from Dr. Pemberton.  Let me see that on your arm, my dear,” and he extended his hand to grasp it.

“They are indelible, Mr. Bainrothe,” I replied, folding my arms tightly above my heart, “as are some other impressions; never allude to them again, I request you.  It offends me.”  And I left him, coldly and abruptly.

I give this little scene only as a specimen of his occasional behavior at this period, and of the humiliation to which his presence so often subjected me.  But matters had not yet culminated.

CHAPTER VII.

Evelyn’s fortune and Mabel’s were, like much of my own, invested in the Bank of Pennsylvania, and deemed secure in that gigantic bubble.  At twenty-three Evelyn, of course, consulted no one as to the disposition of her income, which she spent freely and magnificently on herself alone.  Her jewels, silks, laces, were of the finest quality and fabric; she drove a peerless little equipage, had her own ponies and tiger and maid; travelled frequently, entertained splendidly, though this last, it must be confessed, was not at her expense, if redounding to her credit.

To her my father had decreed the first position in his household until my marriage (with her sanction) or majority should occur, and she kept it bravely.  She possessed a leading spirit, and loved to rule whether by right or sufferance.  Lovers she had in plenty; suitors, such as they were, manifold; yet she preferred so far her single estate to aught that could be or had been offered.  I began to think that her constancy deserved to be rewarded, and to withdraw on such score the objection I had felt so strong in the outset against her union with Claude Bainrothe.