A young girl of wonderful beauty, rare, erect carriage, and eyes of a strange, violet-gray, full of much meaning.  This was all Pinckney had time to note; it was no one he had ever seen before.  He had gone up like a hunter, sure of his game, and too far in it to retract.  The embarrassment of the situation was such that Pinckney forgot all his cleverness of manner, and blurted out the truth like any schoolboy.

“I beg pardon—­I was looking for Miss Austin,” said he; and he raised his hat.

A delightful smile of merriment curled the beauty’s lips.  “My acquaintance with Miss Austin is too slight to justify my finding her for you; but I wish you all success in your efforts,” she said, and vanished, leaving the promising young lawyer to blush at his own awkwardness and wonder who she was.  As she disappeared, he only saw that her hair was a lustrous coil of pale gold-brown, borne proudly.

He soon found Emily Austin, and forgot the beauty, as he gave his betrothed a kiss and saw her color heighten; and in the afternoon they took a long drive.  It was only at tea, as he was sitting at table with the Austins in the long dining-room, that some one walked in like a goddess; and it was she.  He asked her name; and they told him it was a Miss Warfield, of Baltimore, and she was engaged to a Mr. Breeze.

In the evening there was a ball; and as they were dancing (for every one danced in those days) he saw her again, sitting alone this time and unattended.  She was looking eagerly across the room, through the dancers and beyond; and in her eyes was the deepest look of sadness Pinckney had ever seen in a girl’s face; a look such as he had thought no girl could feel.  A moment after, and it was gone, as some one spoke to her; and Pinckney wondered if he had not been mistaken, so fleeting was it, and so strange.  An acquaintance—­one of those men who delight to act as brokers of acquaintances—­who had noticed his gaze came up.  “That is the famous Miss Mary Warfield,” said he.  “Shall I not introduce you?”

“No,” said Pinckney; and he turned away rudely.  To be rude when you like is perhaps one of the choicest prerogatives of a good social position.  The acquaintance stared after him, as he went back to Miss Austin, and then went up and spoke to Miss Warfield himself.  A moment after, Pinckney saw her look over at him with some interest; and he wondered if the man had been ass enough to tell her.  Pinckney was sitting withlimily Austin; and, after another moment, he saw Miss Warfield look at her.  Then her glance seemed to lose its interest; her eyelids drooped, and Pinckney could see, from her interlocutor’s mantief^ that he was put to his trumps to keep her attention.  At last he got away, awkwardly; and for many minutes the strange girl sat like a statue, her long lashes just veiling her eyes, so that Pinckney, from a distance, could not see what was in them.  Suddenly the veil was drawn and her eyes shone full