"She won't be different. Her father was a wild Irishman. Besides, I have seen her sort over and over again, and it is positive cruelty to animals to drag the poor creatures from their dull homes into the very centre of life and gayety. They never can make up their minds whether the butler that announces dinner is or is not the latest arrival; and they invariably say, 'No, thank you,' when asked to have anything. To them the fish-knife is a thing unknown and afternoon tea the wildest dissipation." "Well, I can only hope and trust she will turn out just what you say," says Marcia, laughing. Four days later, meeting her on his way to the stables, he throws her a letter from his solicitor. "It is all right," he says, and goes on a step or two, as though hurried, while she hastily runs her eyes over it. "Well, and now your mind is at rest," she calls after him, as she sees the distance widening between them. "For the present, yes." "Well, here, take your letter." "Tear it up; I don't want it," he returns, and disappears round the angle of the house. Her fingers form themselves as though about to obey him and tear the note in two. Then she pauses. "He may want it," she says to herself, hesitating. "Business letters are sometimes useful afterward. I will keep it for him." She slips it into her pocket, and for the time being thinks no more of it. That night, as she undresses, finding it again, she throws it carelessly into a drawer, where it lies for many days forgotten. * * * * * It is the twentieth of August: in seven days more the "little country girl with freckles and a snub nose" will be at Herst Royal, longing "for the earth to open and swallow her up." To Philip her coming is a matter of the most perfect indifference. To Marcia it is an event,--and an unpleasant one. When, some three years previously, Marcia Amherst consented to leave the mother she so sincerely loved to tend an old and odious man, she did so at his request and with her mother's full sanction, through desire of the gold that was to be (it was tacitly understood) the reward of her devotion. There was, however, another condition imposed upon her before she might come to Herst and take up permanent quarters there. This was the entire forsaking of her mother, her people, and the land of her birth. To this also there was open agreement made: which agreement was in private broken. She was quite clever enough to manage a clandestine correspondence without fear of discovery; but letters, however frequent, hardly make up for enforced absence from those we love, and Marcia's affection for her Italian mother was the one pure sentiment in her rather scheming disposition. Yet the love of riches, that is innate in all, was sufficiently strong in her to bear her through with her task.