"Now I'm going to have a good look at Verona," announced Mrs. Chandos, as she seized the girl's wrist in a fierce claw-like clutch--her tiny hand resembled the paw of a marmoset--and led her nearer to the light. The scrutiny proved to be critical, it was more--it was cruel; the hard, eager eyes that stared into hers, were keen as sword points, and the unhappy girl realized that no love lay within that searching gaze. Releasing her daughter with a little contemptuous push, Mrs. Chandos turned to her husband, and said, "She's like no one I've ever seen; I suppose _you_ think Verona takes after your family," and she laughed, as if this idea embodied an excellent joke. "Yes, I believe she does," admitted Mr. Chandos, as he glanced at the white, set face with a look of anxious deprecation. "Well, now we must introduce Verona to her sisters and brother," pursued his wife; "this is Dominga," as she led forward a tall, slim girl of twenty, with a bleached complexion and masses of splendid red hair; her eyes were long and narrow, her nose delicately cut, her lips were full; as she pressed them on Verona's cheek they were dry and burning like two coals. "And here is Pussy; her real name is Bellamina." Pussy, who was shy, approached wriggling and giggling. She was dark and plump, but had a sweet good-tempered face, and her eyes were magnificent. She looked up timidly at her pale English sister, and in another second Pussy had flung her arms around her neck and given her her first really cordial embrace. "Oh, my goodness, Verona!" she gasped, "you are a beautee, just like a picture. I shall love you, I know." "And here is Nicky," continued Mrs. Chandos, dragging up a reluctant youth, with his long lank wrists bare of cuff, his wiry hair on end, his sunken eyes twinkling and mischievous. Nicky grinned from ear to ear, but made no attempt to salute his relative. "So now you have seen them all except Blanche, and she will come to-morrow," said Mrs. Chandos. "Oh, my! how funny it is, to have one great big, new daughter, just like a stranger, is it not, Verona?" "Yes," she acquiesced, mechanically, scarcely aware that she had spoken. Was this scene really happening, or was it not some hideous dream? "If old Fernanda had not been so weecked we should never have seen you at all. No?" Mrs. Chandos concluded most of her sentences with a staccato-like note of negation. "Which would have been our misfortune," supplemented Mr. Chandos, with unexpected force. "We are all glad to claim Verona."