The tears had their course, at last, bathing the hand she bowed to kiss.  The simple ardor of the outbreak would have affected many men to a show of responsive weakness.  Even Winston Aylett’s physiognomy was more human and less statuesque, as he patted her head, and bade her be composed.

“If you persist in enacting Niobe, I shall believe that you are chagrined at the prospect of having the sister you have repeatedly besought me to give you,” he said, playfully—­for him.  “You have not asked me her name, and where she lives.  What has become of your curiosity?  I never knew it to be quiescent before.”

“I thought you would tell me whatever it was best for me to know,” replied Mabel, drying her eyes.

If she had said that she was too well-trained to assail him with interrogatories he had not invited, it would have been nearer the mark.

“There is nothing relating to her which I desire to conceal,” he rejoined, with some stiffness, “or she would never have become my promised wife.  She is a Miss Dorrance, the daughter of a widow residing in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts.  I met her first at Trenton Falls, where a happy accident brought me into association with her party.  I travelled with them to the Lakes and among the White Mountains, and, while in Boston, visited her daily.  We were betrothed a week ago, and having, as I have observed, an aversion to protracted engagements, I prevailed upon her to appoint the tenth of next mouth as our marriage day.  There you have the story in brief.  I have not Mrs. Sutton’s talents as a raconteur, nor her disposition to turn hearts inside out for the edification of her auditors.”

“Does she—­Miss Dorrance—­look like anybody I know?” asked Mabel, hesitating to declare herself dissatisfied with the skeleton love-tale, yet uncertain how to learn more.

“A roundabout way of asking if she is passable in appearance,” Winston said, with his smile of conscious superiority.  “Judge for yourself!” taking from his pocket a miniature.

“How beautiful!  What a very handsome woman?” the sister exclaimed at sight of the pictured face.

“You are correct.  She is, moreover, a thorough lady, and highly-educated.  Ridgeley will have a queenly mistress.  The likeness is considered faithful, but it does not do her justice.”

He took it from Mabel, and they scanned it together; she resting against his shoulder.  She felt his chest heave twice; heard him swallow spasmodically in the suppression of some mighty emotion, and the palpable effort drew her very near to him.  She never doubted from that moment, what she had more cause in after days to believe, that he loved the woman he had won with a fervor of passion that seemed foreign to his temperament as the evidence of it was to his conduct.

The September sun was near the horizon, and between the bowed shutters one slender, gilded arrow shot athwart the portrait, producing a marvellous and sinister change in its expression.  The large, limpid eyes became shallow and cunning; the smile lurking about the mouth was the more treacherous and deadly for its sweetness; while the burnished coils of hair brushed away from the temples had the opaline tints and sinuous roll of a serpent.