“You know, dear, that we are only waiting for Congress to adjourn, in order to have Mr. Chesley’s escort across the ocean, and he will arrive to-morrow.  Erle Palma is exceedingly anxious that you should accompany us, and I trust your mother will sanction this arrangement, for I should grieve to leave you here.  Perhaps you are not aware that your guardian has recently sold this house, and intends purchasing one on Murray Hill.”

“Mr. Palma cannot possibly desire my departure half so earnestly as I do, and if I am not summoned to join my mother, I shall insist upon returning to the convent whence he took me seven years ago.  There I can continue my studies, and there I prefer to remain until I can be restored to my mother.  Olga, how soon will Mr. Palma be married?”

“I do not know.  He communicates his plans to no one; but I may safely say, if he consulted merely his own wishes, it would not be long delayed.  Until quite recently, I did not believe it possible that that man’s cold, proud, ambitious, stony heart would bow before any woman, but human nature is a riddle which baffles us all—­sometimes.  I must dress for the wedding, and mamma will scold me if I am late.  Kiss me, dear child.  Ah, velvet violet eyes! if I find a resting-place in heaven, I shall always want even there to hover near you.”

She kissed the girl’s colourless cheek, and left her; and when the carriage bore Olga and her mother to Mrs. St. Clare’s, Regina retreated to her own room, dreading lest her guardian should return and find her in the library.

At breakfast he had mentioned that he would dine at his club, in honour of some eminent judge from a distant State, to whom the members of the “Century” had tendered a dinner, but she endeavoured to avoid even the possibility of meeting him alone.  Had she been less merciless in her self-denunciation, his avowed impatience to send her to her mother might have piqued her pride; but it only increased her scorn of her own fatal folly, and intensified her desire to leave his presence.  Was it to gratify Mrs. Carew’s extravagant taste that he had sold this elegant house, and designed the purchase of one yet more costly?

In the midst of her heart-ache she derived some satisfaction from the reflection, that at least Mr. Palma’s wife would never profane the beautiful library, where his ward had spent so many happy days, and which was indissolubly linked with sacred memories of its master.  Unwilling to indulge a reverie so fraught with pain and humiliation, she returned to her “Egmont,” resuming her translation of a speech by “Claerchen.”  Ere long Hattie knocked at the door: 

“Mr. Palma says, please to come down to the library; he wishes to speak to you.”

“Ask him if he will not be so kind as to wait till morning?  Say I shall feel very much obliged if he will excuse me tonight.”

In a few minutes she returned: 

“He is sorry he must trouble you to come down this evening, as he leaves home to-morrow.”