“Lord, bless my soul alive,” mentally continued the banker, without paying the slightest attention to the apologizing servant.  “The Marquis of Arondelle!  He was the fourteenth guest, and the only young man present!  And upon my word and honor, the very handsomest and most attractive young fellow I ever saw in all the days of my life!  Come!” he added to himself, as the full revelation of the truth burst upon his mind; “that can be easily enough arranged.  If he is the sensible, practical man I take him to be, he will get back his estates and the very best little wife that ever was wed into the bargain; and my girl will be a marchioness, and in time a duchess.  But stay—­what is that I heard up at Lone about the young marquis and a handsome shepherdess?  Chut! what is that to us?  That is probably a slander.  The marquis is a noble young fellow; and I will bring him home with me this evening.  I will not wait a week until that dinner comes off.  We cannot afford to lose so much time at the end of the season,” mused the banker, through all the time his valet was dressing him.

And now we must glance back to that evening when John Scott, Marquis of Arondelle, first met Salome Levison.  He had met many statuesque, pink and white beauties in his young life; and he had admired each and all with all a young man’s ardor.  But not one of them had touched his heart, as did the first full gaze of those large, soft gray eyes that were lifted to his and immediately dropped as the old banker had presented him to—­

“My daughter, Miss Levison.”

She was not statuesque.  She was not pink and white.  She was not at all handsome, or even pretty; yet something in the pale, sweet, earnest face, something in the soft clear gray eyes touched his heart even before he was presented to her.  But when she lifted those eloquent eyes to his face, there was such a world of sympathy, appreciation and devotion in their swift and swiftly-withdrawn gaze, that her soul seemed then and there to reveal itself to his soul.

He never again met the full gaze of those spirit eyes.  He never exchanged a word with her after the first few formal words of greeting.  He had only bowed to her, in taking leave that evening.

Yet those eyes had haunted him in their meek appealing tenderness ever since.  He did not meet her anywhere by accident, and he did not try to meet her by design.  He only thought of her constantly.  But what had he to do with the banker’s wealthy heiress, the future mistress of Lone?  If he were so unwise as to seek her acquaintance, the world would be quick to ascribe the most mercenary motives to his conduct.  But like weaker minded lovers, he comforted himself by writing such transcendental poetry as “The Soul’s Recognition,” “The Meeting of the Spirits,” “What Those Eyes Said,” etc.  He did not publish these.  After having relieved his mind of them, he put them away to keep in his portfolio.  So you see the handsome, “princely” Hereward was as much in love with our pale, gray-eyed girl as She could possibly be with him.