with the verses, they are—­pardon me, dear—­as thin and flavourless as—­well, as the soup dished out at pauper restaurants.  You are at liberty to consider me consumed by envy, green with jealousy, when I here spitefully record that Elliott’s ambitious poem reminds me of M. de Bonald’s biting criticism on Madame de Kruedener:  ’I make bold to declare, with the Bible in my hand, that the poor we shall always have with us, were it only the poor in intellect.’  Coke and Story will befriend poor Elliott much more effectually than the Muses, who have most ingloriously snubbed him.  Are you really happy, little snowbird, nestling in the down of mother-love, which—­like the veritable baby you are—­you so pined for?

“Regina, I am going to tell you something.  Bar the windows, lock the doors, shut it up for ever, close in your own heart.  A few nights ago, I went with an English friend to the Conversationshaus.  When we had leaned awhile against one of the columns, and watched the dancers in the magnificent saloon, he proposed to show me the grand gambling-room.

“As we walked slowly along, listening to the click of the gold that pattered down from trembling hands, I saw, sitting at a Roulette table, deeply immersed in the game (never tell it!) Belmont Eggleston.  Not the same classic, god-like face that I would once have followed straight to Hades—­not the man upon whom I wasted all the love that God gives a woman to glorify her life and home; but a flushed, bloated creature, as unlike the Belmont of my hopes and dreams as ‘Hyperion to a Satyr!’ I watched him till my very soul turned sick, and all Pandemonium seemed to have joined in a jeer at my former infatuation.  Next day, I saw him reel from a saloon to the steps of his wife’s carriage.  Years ago, when Erle Palma told me that my darling drank and gambled, I denied it; and in return for the warning, emptied more wrath upon my informer than all the Apocalyptic vials held.  Ah! for poor Belmont, I fought as fiercely as a tawny tigress, when her youngest cub is captured by the hunters.  Ashes!  Bitter ashes of love and trust!  Truly ’there is no pardon for desecrated ideals.’  I have lived to learn that—­

                    ’Man trusts in God;
        He is eternal.  Woman trusts in man,
        And he is shifting sand.’”

“Regina!”

The girl looked up, and saw her uncle with an open letter in his hand.

“What is it?  Some bad news!”

“Dear little girl, you are indeed fatherless now.”

She bent her head upon the ledge of the window, and after a moment Mr. Chesley sighed, and smoothed her hair.

“With all his faults, he was still your father; and having had several interviews with him in Paris, I was convinced he was more ‘sinned against than sinning,’ though of course he knew that he could never have legally married again while Minnie lived.  God help us to forgive, even as we need and hope to be forgiven.”