Julia Desmond led a very pleasant life, and there were people who said that the colonel’s daughter was a most fortunate person; but for Julia herself there was just one drop in the cup which was bitter enough to change the flavour of the entire draught. She was _not_ Maude Hillary. That was Miss Desmond’s grand grievance. She brooded over it sometimes when she brushed her hair of a night before the big looking-glass in her pretty chintz-curtained chamber at the Cedars. Maude had two cheval glasses that swung upon hinges at each side of her dressing-table, and Maude had her own maid to brush her hair; but Julia was fain to smooth her own dark tresses. Miss Desmond thought of her grievance very often of a night, when she contemplated her face by the light of a pair of wax candles, and pondered upon the events of the day. She was not Maude Hillary. She was not sole heiress to one of the largest fortunes--so ran the common rumour--ever won by City merchant. She had not received half the attention that had been bestowed upon Miss Hillary during that day. And if not, why not? Was it because she was less good-looking? Certainly not. Miss Desmond was a handsome girl, with bold, striking features, and her black eyes flashed indignation upon the other eyes in the glass at the mere thought of any personal superiority on the part of Maude Hillary. Was it because she was less accomplished? No, indeed. Whose thumbs were the strongest and did most execution in a fantasia by Thalberg? Whose right little finger was clearest and steadiest in a prolonged shake? Whose figures in a water-colour sketch stood firmest on their legs? Miss Desmond’s, of course. But Maude was rich, and Julia was poor; and the meanness of mankind was testified by the absurd devotion which they all exhibited for the heiress. Julia was really fond of Maude, and thought her tolerably pretty; but she did not comprehend the grand fact that Miss Hillary was one of the most fascinating of women, and that she herself was not. She was handsome and stylish, and accomplished and well-bred; but she was not bewitching. When Maude spoke in a friendly manner to any masculine acquaintance he was apt to be seized with a mad impulse that prompted him to kiss her there and then, though eternal banishment from her divine presence would be his immediate doom. Even women had something of the same feeling when Miss Hillary talked to them; and perhaps this may be attributed to the fact that her mouth was the best and most expressive feature in her face. Such heavenly smiles, such innocently and unconsciously bewitching variations of expression played perpetually about those lovely rosy lips, that the harshest woman-hater might have been betrayed into the admission that amongst nature’s numerous mistakes Maude Hillary’s creation was an excusable one. Fortune-hunters, who came with mercenary aspirations, remained to be sincere. Rich young stockbrokers, who