the shadows, Katie was prudent and said nothing at all. As for Lucy, she did not in the least perceive the covetousness which--in some instances, so mingled with other feelings that its baseness was scarcely visible--flamed in the eyes of the irreproachable people who surrounded her. Mrs. Rushton was a kind, good woman, who would not have harmed a fly. Mrs. Stone was better even, she was high-minded, generous in her way. And yet they both devoured Lucy in their thoughts--gave her over to the destroyer. How fortunate that she never suspected them as she stood there tranquilly between the two, acknowledging that she knew a great deal about her money! Mrs. Rushton was still shaking her head at that avowal. “My dear,” she was saying, and with perfect sincerity, “you must not let it turn your head. Money can do a great deal, but there are many things it can not do. It can not make you happy--or good.” “Lucy is good in spite of it,” Mrs. Stone said, she too in all sincerity; “and I don’t think she lets her mind dwell upon it. But it is a very equivocal advantage for a girl,” she added, with a sigh. All this Frank St. Clair listened to with a grin upon his good-looking countenance. What humbugs! he said to himself--not being capable of understanding that these women were much more interesting as well as more dangerous in not being humbugs at all. He, for his part, waited for an opportunity of making himself agreeable to the little heiress in perfect good faith--_brutalement_ as the French say. He wanted to please her frankly for her fortune’s sake. Not that he could have been unkind to her had he happened to strike her fancy, or would waste her fortune, or do anything unbecoming an honest Englishman. But an honest Englishman with a light purse may surely look after a girl with money without compromising his character. When he asked her to marry him he would not let her see that her money had anything to do with it. He would fall in love with her as a matter of course. It is not difficult to fall in love with a pretty young girl of seventeen. Well, perhaps, not strictly pretty--not nearly so pretty, for example, as that little Poverty by her side, the foil to her wealth; but still very presentable, and not unattractive in her own simple person. Thus the cautious eyes that surrounded Lucy, the hearts that beat with eagerness to entrap and seize her, did not recognize themselves as inflamed by evil passions. They were aware, perhaps, that a little casuistry would be necessary to make the outer world aware of the innocence of their intentions, but there was no aspect of the case in which they could not prove that innocence to themselves.