"And after all, Lady Vera's mother was an American, and she was born in the United States herself. Why should she hold herself above one of her own country people?" said one of the knowing ones. No one could answer the question, and least of all the Americans themselves, who were secretly galled and humiliated almost beyond endurance by the scorn and indifference of the proud and beautiful young girl. Mr. Noble was sorely chafed by Lady Vera's course. He had conceived a great admiration for her, and desired to hear her talk, that he might learn if her voice as well as her face resembled his dead wife, Vera, the girl who had committed suicide rather than be an unloving wife. Mrs. Cleveland, who had desired to know her because she was the fashion just then, was very angry, too, but Ivy took it the hardest of all. She considered it a deliberate and malicious affront to herself. "The proud minx!" she said, angrily. "In what is she better than I am that she should refuse to know me? I shall ask her what she means by it." "You will do no such thing," Mrs. Cleveland cries out, startled by the threat. "You would make yourself perfectly ridiculous! We will pass it over in utter silence, and show her that we cannot be hurt by such foolish airs as she gives herself." "I am as good as she. I will not be trampled upon!" Ivy retorts, venomously. "What! is she made of more than common clay because she has gold hair and black eyes, and a pink and white face like a doll? It is all false after all, I have no doubt. Her hair is bleached by the golden fluid, and her red and white bought at Madame Blanche's shop!" "People who live in glass houses should never throw stones," interpolates her lord and master, thus diverting her wrath a moment from Lady Vera and drawing it down upon his own devoted head. * * * * * But no one is more surprised at Vera's course than her lover, Colonel Lockhart. It is when they have gone home from Lady Spencer's ball, and he detains her one moment in the drawing-room to say good-night, that he asks her anxiously: "Vera, my darling, what story lies behind your refusal to know these people to-night?" He feels the start and shiver that runs over the graceful form as he holds her hand in his own. She looks up at him with such a white and despairing face that he is almost frightened. "Oh, Philip," she cries, in a voice of the bitterest pain, "I wish you had not asked me that question yet. Believe me, you will know too soon." "Then there is a story!" he exclaims. "Yes," she answers, wearily. "But, Philip, let me go now. I am very tired. You do not know all that I have borne to-night." He folds the beautiful figure closely in his arms, and kisses the white eyelids that droop so wearily over the sad, dark eyes.