Long Branch, and Newport, those popular human expositions, where wealth and fashion flock to display and compare their textile fabrics and jewellery, as less ‘developed’ cattle still on four feet are hurried to State fairs, to ascertain the value of their pearly short horns, thin tails, and satin-coated skins.  No expense or pains were spared, and my mother’s stepson certainly lavished his money as well as advice upon me.  At long intervals I had stolen interviews with Belmont, then he went far south to study for a tropical landscape, and was absent two years.  When he returned, beaming with hope, the cloud over our lives seemed silvering at the edges, and he was sanguine that his picture would compel recognition, and bring him fame, which in art means food.  But Earl Palma had resolved otherwise.  It was our misfortune, that in my haste to see the picture, I neglected my usual precautionary measures to elude suspicion, and your guardian tracked me to the attic, where the finishing touches were being put on.  Unluckily Belmont was never a favourite among the artists, and he explained to me that it was because he was proud, reticent, and held himself aloof from their club life and social haunts.  Taking advantage of his personal unpopularity, your magnanimous guardian organized a cabal against him.  No sooner was the painting exhibited, than a tirade of ridicule and abuse was poured upon it, and the journal most influential in forming and directing artistic taste, contained an overwhelmingly adverse criticism, which was written by a particular friend and chum of Erle Palma, who, I am convinced, caused its preparation.  Oh, Regina! it was a cruel, cruel stab, that entered my darling’s noble tender heart, and almost maddened him.  In literature, savage criticism defeats its own unamiable purpose, by promoting the sale of books it is designed to crush; but unfortunately this law does not often operate in the department of painting.  In a fit of gloomy despondency, Belmont offered his lovely work for a mere trifle, but the picture dealers declined to touch it at any price, and rashly cutting it from the frame, he threw the labour of years into the flames.  Meantime grand-mamma had died, and Belmont’s mother became hopelessly bedridden, while his young brother had made his way to Europe, where he occupied a menial position in a sculptor’s atelier at Florence.  A more rigid surveillance was exerted over me, and the dancing dervishes crowned me queen of their revels.  By day and by night I was surrounded with influence intended to beguile me from the past, to narcotize memory, to make me in reality the heartless, soulless, scoffing creature that I certainly seem.  But Erle Palma has found me stiff tough clay, and despite his efforts, I have been true to the one love of my life.  What I have suffered, none but the listening watching God above us knows; and sometimes I despise and loathe myself for the miserable subterfuges I am forced to practise in order to elude my keepers.