Just now this Cuban widow is the fashionable lioness; she is also a pet _clientele_ of Erle Palma, and comes here to-day on a brief visit. Heaven grant she prove his Lamia! As she affects Oriental style, I call her Cleopatra, which pleases her vastly. Having been endowed at birth with beauty and fortune, her remaining ambition is to appear fastidious in literature, and _dilettante_ in art, and if you wish to stretch her on St. Lawrence's gridiron, you have only to offer a quotation or illustration which she cannot understand. Beware of the poison of asps. There is an object to be accomplished by inviting her here, and you may safely indulge the belief that her own campaign is well matured. Keep your solemn sinless eyes wide open, and don't under any circumstances quarrel with poor Elliott Roscoe. One drop of his blood floats more generosity and magnanimity than all the blue ice in his cousin's body. He was in a savage mood last night, at Mrs. Tarrant's, and had some angry words with your guardian, who of course treated him as he would a spoiled boy. Roscoe at least has or had a heart. There is the day staring at us! I must be gone. Remember--I have trusted you." She left the room, closing the door noiselessly, and Regina was lost in perplexing conjectures concerning the significance of her parting warning. It was not yet eight o'clock when she descended to the breakfast-room, but Mr. Palma was already there, and stood at the window, with an open newspaper which he appeared to scan very intently. In answer to her subdued "Good-morning," he merely bowed, without turning his head, and she rang the bell and took her place at the table. While she scalded and wiped the cups (one of his requirements), he walked to the hearth, glanced at his watch, and said: "Let me have my coffee at once. I have an early engagement. As it threatens snow, you must keep indoors today." "I am obliged to attend the Cantata rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's." "Then I will order the carriage to be placed at your disposal. What hour?" "One o'clock." Upon her plate lay a sealed envelope, and as she put it in her pocket, his keen eyes searched her countenance. "Did you sleep well? I should judge you had not closed your eyes." "I wrote a long letter to mother, and afterward I could not sleep." "You look as if you had grown five years older, since you gave me my coffee yesterday. When the rehearsal ends, I wish you to come directly home and go to sleep; for there will be company here to-day, and it might be rather unflattering to me as guardian, to present my ward to strangers, and imagine their comments on your weary hollow eyes and face as blanched, as 'pale as Seneca's Paulina.'" CHAPTER XXIII.