But poor Hesper had much excuse, though no justification. She had had many of the disadvantages and scarce one of the benefits of poverty. She had heard constantly from childhood the most worldly and greedy talk, the commonest expression of abject dependence on the favors of Mammon, and thus had from the first been in preparation for _marrying money_. She had been taught no other way of doing her part to procure the things of which the Father knows we have need. She had never earned a dinner; had never done or thought of doing a day's work--of offering the world anything for the sake of which the world might offer her a shilling to do it again; she had never dreamed of being of any use, even to herself; she had learned to long for money, but had never been hungry, never been cold: she had sometimes felt shabby. Out of it all she had brought but the knowledge that this matter of beauty, with which, by some blessed chance, she was endowed, was worth much precious money in the world's market--worth all the dresses she could ever desire, worth jewels and horses and servants, adoration and adulation--everything, in fact, the world calls fine, and the devil offers to those who, unscared by his inherent ugliness, will fall down and worship him. CHAPTER XXX. A SCOLDING. The Evening Star found herself a success--that is, much followed by the men and much complimented by the women. Her triumph, however, did not culminate until the next appearance of "The Firefly," containing a song "To the Evening Star," which _everybody_ knew to stand for Mrs. Redmain. The chaos of the uninitiated, indeed, exoteric and despicable, remained in ignorance, nor dreamed that the verses meant anybody of note; to them they seemed but the calf-sigh of some young writer so deep in his first devotion that he jumbled up his lady-love, Hesper, and Aphrodite, in the same poetic bundle--of which he left the string-ends hanging a little loose, while, upon the whole, it remained a not altogether unsightly bit of prentice-work. Tom had not been at the party, but had gathered fire enough from what he heard of Hesper's appearance there to write the verses. Here they are, as nearly as I can recall them. They are in themselves not worth writing out for the printers, but, in their surroundings, they serve to show Tom, and are the last with which I shall trouble the readers of this narrative. "TO THE EVENING STAR. "From the buried sunlight springing, Through flame-darkened, rosy loud, Native sea-hues with thee bringing, In the sky thou reignest proud! "Who is like thee, lordly lady, Star-choragus of the night! Color worships, fainting fady, Night grows darker with delight! "Dusky-radiant, far, and somber, In the coolness of thy state, From my eyelids chasing slumber, Thou dost smile upon my fate; "Calmly shinest; not a whisper Of my songs can reach thine ear; What is it to thee, O Hesper, That a heart should long or fear?"