It was by her beauty, and the pride which her worshipper, Sally Chester, took in her, that her position was chiefly maintained. Sally was scarcely ever seen with a clean face; the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was scarcely ever seen with a dirty one. Sally was never without rents in her clothes and holes in her stockings; the Duchess was invariably a picture of neatness. Sally's hair hung always in wild disorder about her thin, sallow face; the Duchess's was always carefully combed and smoothed. "A duchess!" exclaimed many a woman; "upon my word, she looks like one!" It was the fashion with many of the youngsters to bite their nails; she never did. Her little plump fingers were generally white and clean, and her nails were seldom, if ever, in mourning. And Seth Dumbrick took care of her feet. It became his whim to make for his new charge the prettiest boots and shoes, which were at once the envy and admiration of her playmates. She received all the court paid to her, all the flatteries of her worshippers, all the adoration which Sally poured upon her, with queenly composure. There are natures with a wondrous capacity for bestowing love, and whose sweetest pleasure it is to lavish affection on an endeared object. Such a nature Sally possessed, and it had found its idol. But had not the Duchess of Rosemary Lane been distinguished and made conspicuous by circumstances not dependent upon herself, she would have claimed attention from certain qualities peculiarly her own. In conjunction with her beauty, she had, when she was puzzled or pleased, quaint tricks of expression indescribably winning, and when no actual passion or emotion lighted up her features and they were in repose, she looked so sweet and pure that all hearts were instinctively attracted towards her. Seth Dumbrick, when he adopted the girls, had done so with a full intention to perform his duty by them. There was more than one difficulty, however, for which he was utterly unprepared, and the first of these presented itself in the person of Mrs. Chester's "lovely lad," Ned. Upon his mother's departure to her new sphere of duties, this estimable young gentleman found himself without a home; whereupon he began, after the usual custom of such natures, to repine bitterly at fate because of his unfortunate lot. But fate is an insensible antagonist, and, repine at it as you will, you cannot make it feel. Ned Chester cast about for some more vulnerable foe, and by a curious process of reasoning, he selected Seth Dumbrick. His sister Sally and the Duchess of Rosemary Lane played important parts in the belief, and it led him to the opinion that, in adopting them, Seth Dumbrick had inflicted a distinct injury upon him. With this injury rankling in his mind, he, some three months after his mother's departure, presented himself at Seth Dumbrick's stall. Seth Dumbrick was not the first to speak. He saw that Ned Chester was not sober, and he had no desire to quarrel with him.