He bowed coldly, and she hurried away, glad to reach the gate and feel that she was once more free from his searching glance and beyond the sound of his reserved, chilling tones.  As she walked on, groups of happy parents and children were seen in every direction, taking their quiet Sabbath ramble through the suburbs; and as joyous voices and innocent laughter fell upon the still air, she remembered with keen sorrow that she had no ties, no kindred, no companions.  Lilly’s cherub face looked out at her from the somber frame of the past, and Eugene’s early friendship seemed now a taunting specter.  In her warm, loving heart were unfathomable depths of intense tenderness.  Was it the wise providence of God which sealed these wells of affection, or was it a grim, merciless fate which snatched her idols from her, one by one, and left her heart desolate?  Such an inquiry darted through her mind; but she put it resolutely aside, and consoled herself much after this fashion:  “Why should I question the circumstances of my life?  If the God of Moses guards his creation, all things are well.  If not, life is a lottery, and though I have drawn blanks thus far, the future may contain a prize, and for me that prize may be the truth my soul pants after.  I have no right to complain; the very loneliness of my position fits me peculiarly for the work I have to do.  I will labor, and be content.”  The cloud passed swiftly from her countenance, and she looked up to the quiet sky with a brave, hopeful heart.

CHAPTER XXV.

Among the number of gentlemen whom Beulah occasionally met at Dr. Asbury’s house were two whose frequent visits and general demeanor induced the impression that they were more than ordinarily interested in the sisters.  Frederick Vincent evinced a marked preference for Georgia, while Horace Maxwell was conspicuously attentive to Helen.  The former was wealthy, handsome, indolent, and self-indulgent; the latter rather superior, as to business habits, which a limited purse peremptorily demanded.  Doubtless both would have passed as men of medium capacity, but certainly as nothing more.  In fine, they were fair samples, perfect types of the numerous class of fashionable young men who throng all large cities.  Good-looking, vain, impudent, heartless, frivolous, and dissipated; adepts at the gaming table and pistol gallery, ciphers in an intelligent, refined assembly.  They smoked the choicest cigars, drank the most costly wines, drove the fastest horses, and were indispensable at champagne and oyster suppers.  They danced and swore, visited and drank, with reckless indifference to every purer and nobler aim.  Notwithstanding manners of incorrigible effrontery which characterized their clique, the ladies always received them with marked expressions of pleasure, and the entree of the “first circle” was certainly theirs.  Dr. Asbury knew comparatively little of the young men who visited so constantly at his house, but of