instinctively the keener perception of the two for the worth of costly surroundings and possessions. No princess who had breathed perfumes all her life, trod on velvet and been served on gold and silver, could have felt a more vital necessity for luxury than Georgy, who had always lived among shabby things and known few but shabby people. She was born with the looks, manners and tastes of what we call an aristocrat, and her mother worshipped these traits in her. When one day she flung away her dinner because it was not to her liking, and went out of doors and pulled the peaches ripening against the wall, and ate them instead, Mrs. Lenox felt that such fastidiousness foreshadowed a destiny more than common. For her to tear her hats to pieces and cut her dress or apron in shreds because they did not suit her was a frequent caprice, and one we had all laughed at again and again--except Jack, who was thrifty by nature and respected the worth of things like a sensible economist. It was generally he, however, who replaced the ruined garments, and by the time he was sixteen he had attained quite a nice taste in millinery from his frequent purchases for Georgy. Mrs. Lenox always had a fit of weeping when such presents came and were displayed by Georgy as trophies, for she was still too proud not to be cut deeply by every fresh humiliation; but her belief in her daughter's future carried her through the present, and she pacified her scruples in regard to her course with Jack or anybody else who made outlay for her daughter by remembering that all such services would be balanced by and by when the natural order of things had been restored. All in Belfield knew both Mrs. Lenox and Georgy so well--their history, the miserable shortcomings of their home, the girl's scanty education both of intellect and morals--that we could but attribute their faults to sheer worldliness combined with the evils of their bitter poverty. Jack and myself, at least, with the most meagre excuse readily forgave Georgy everything. She was so beautiful, so radiant in all the phases of her dingy life, so good-natured even in her contempt of our stupidity and dulness, so eager to find enjoyment in everything, that we were willing to accept all her faults with her charms, to love her idolatrously, and blame ourselves for harshness if we were momentarily angry with the lovely creature.