It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the engagement opened everyone’s heart and home.  Congratulations came from every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.

The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding.  Henceforward Clementina Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.

This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it.  To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.

Well, the wedding was over.  She had abundantly gratified her taste for splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home, which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in the country.

Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.  Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty, supported by wealth and position.

Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.

For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called “wife,” there was another woman at Kurston whom he called “daughter,” that he loved quite as dearly, in a different way.  In fact, of his daughter, Athel Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.

No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent.  A strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now been many years dead.

Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.  However—­though she knew it not—­no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston’s heir; indeed, nothing in her father’s conduct sanctioned such a conclusion.  True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.