"Are there not more valuable possessions than dollars, stocks, and bonds? Every one is more or less fascinated, drawn, and won by beauty, and to the beautiful the most sacred thoughts and feelings of the heart are continually intrusted. History and biography show that beautiful women, if true, gentle, and unselfish, have great power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men. Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect life beyond and an earnest of it. All power brings responsibility, even that which a man achieves or buys; but surely, if one receives Heaven's most exquisite gifts, bestowed as directly as this marvellous beauty without, and so is made pre-eminent in power and influence, she is under a double responsibility to use that power for good. That a woman can take the royal gift of her own beauty, a divine heritage, one of the most suggestive relics of Eden still left among us, and daily sacrifice it on the poorest and meanest of altars--her own vanity--is to me hard to understand. It is scarcely respectable heathenism. But to use her beauty as a lure is far worse. Do we condemn wreckers, who place false, misleading lights upon a dangerous coast? What is every grace of a coquette, but a false light, leading often to more sad and hopeless wreck?" No man had ever told Lottie more plainly that she was beautiful, than Hemstead, and yet she disliked his compliments wofully. Her face fairly grew pale under his words. Had he learned of her plot? Had he read her thoughts, and been informed of her past life? Did quiet satire and denunciation lurk under this seeming frankness? She was for the moment perplexed and troubled. Worse still, he compelled her to see these things in a new light, and her conscience echoed his words. But her first impulse was to learn whether he was speaking generally, or pointedly at her; so she asked, in some little trepidation, "Has any naughty girl tried to treat you badly, that you speak so strongly?" He laughed outright at this question. "No one has had a chance," he said; "and I do not think there are many who would take it. Moreover, I imagine that one of your proud belles would not even condescend to flirt with a poor awkward fellow like me. But I am not a croaking philosopher, and look on the bright side of the world. It has always treated me quite as well as I deserved. I often think the world is not so bad as described, and that it would be better, if it had a chance." "Have you seen much of it, Mr. Hemstead?"