up she yearned for more of the motherly companionship, for something more than the odd moments of petting that were given to her in the whirl of the life of a woman of the world.  What that life was, however, she had only the dimmest comprehension, and it was only in the last two years, since she was sixteen, that she began to understand it, and that mainly in contrast to her own guarded life.  And she was now able to see that her own secluded life had been unusual.

Not till long after this did she speak to any one of her experience as a child, of the time when she became conscious that she was never alone, and that she was only free to act within certain limits.

To McDonald, indeed, she had often shown her irritation, and it was only the strong good sense of the governess that kept her from revolt.  It was not until very recently that it could be explained to her, without putting her in terror hourly, why she must always be watched and guarded.

It had required all the tact and sophistry of her governess to make her acquiesce in a system of education—­so it was called-that had been devised in order to give her the highest and purest development.  That the education was mainly left to McDonald, and that her parents were simply anxious about her safety, she did not learn till long afterwards.  In the first years Mrs. Mavick had been greatly relieved to be spared all the care of the baby, and as the years went on, the arrangement seemed more and more convenient, and she gave little thought to the character that was being formed.  To Mr. Mavick, indeed, as to his wife, it was enough to see that she was uncommonly intelligent, and that she had a certain charm that made her attractive.  Mrs. Mavick took it for granted that when it came time to introduce her into the world she would be like other girls, eager for its pleasures and susceptible to all its allurements.  Of the direction of the undercurrents of the girl’s life she had no conception, until she began to unfold to her the views of the world that prevailed in her circle, and what (in the Carmen scheme of life) ought to be a woman’s ambition.

That she was to be an heiress Evelyn had long known, that she would one day have a great fortune at her disposal had indeed come into her serious thought, but the brilliant use of it in relation to herself, at which her mother was always lately hinting, came to her as a disagreeable shock.  For the moment the fortune seemed to her rather a fetter than an opportunity, if she was to fulfill her mother’s expectations.  These hints were conveyed with all the tact of which her mother was master, but the girl was nevertheless somewhat alarmed, and she began to regard the “coming out” as an entrance into servitude rather than an enlargement of liberty.  One day she surprised Miss McDonald by asking her if she didn’t think that rich people were the only ones not free to do as they pleased?

“Why, my dear, it is not generally so considered.  Most people fancy that if they had money enough they could do anything.”