“Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me.”

“Ah, I had almost forgotten.  Wonderful, glorious good fortune!  The price of Circassian skins has gone up in the matrimonial slave-market.”

Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked perplexed.

“You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend the terms of traffic?  You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and woodland violets!  Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing!  Why does not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open on your trial?  You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you.”

For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so compassionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone: 

“Can you keep a secret?”

“I think so.  I will try.”

“Well, then, prepare to envy me.  Until yesterday I was poor Olga Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh, symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure.  Perhaps you do not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you) that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death.  My own poor father left nothing of this world’s goods, consequently I am unprovided for.  We have always been generously and kindly cared for, well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us.  But for some years I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the ordinary batch of charity loaves.  Yesterday I was a pensioner on his bounty, but the god of this world’s riches—­i.e., Plutus—­in consideration no doubt of my long and faithful worship at his altars, has suddenly had compassion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively one of the richest women in New York.  Now do you wonder that Circassia is so jubilant?”

“Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?”

“Oh no! you idiotic cherub!  No such heavenly blessing as that.  Plutus is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to his own profits.  I mean that at last, after many vexatious and grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the highest market price.  Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his fine yacht.  Congratulate me.”