Up and down the vast show-room this person wandered, touching first one article, then another, with a heavy hand, so tightly incased in canary kid gloves, that the delicate fabric seemed ready to burst at each incautious movement of the imprisoned fingers. Now and then she would toss the fabric aside with a scornful little sniff, and ask the obsequious clerk if he had nothing better than that to show a lady who did not stand on prices, but must have the best of everything when she went a shopping. What would she please to look at, indeed? Why just what happened to take her fancy; as for wanting anything particular, she was a long way beyond that. If the young man had anything very _rechercher_, and out of the common, she didn’t mind looking at it; but, goodness gracious! “Who was that young woman?” Here the new customer lifted both hands, and parted her lips with an expression of growing amazement, while her eyes, deepening from blue to pale gray, were fastened on Eva Laurence. “That young lady,” answered the clerk, “is Miss Laurence, just engaged. You are not the first person who has been struck with her good looks. Haven’t a more genteel girl in the establishment.” The customer dropped her hands, and turning abruptly from the clerk, walked to the stair-case, where an elderly man stood waiting for her with the patient indifference of a person impressed into service he did not like. “Herman! Herman Ross!” she exclaimed, in an eager voice, “come here this minute and see for yourself. Did you ever in your born days! Look there! Isn’t that the loveliest creature you ever set eyes on?” Eva was standing at a far-off counter, looking thoughtfully into the distance, with that soft, happy smile brightening her whole face, as the full light from a neighboring window fell upon it. The man paused as he saw the face, and drew back with a sudden recoil from the eager hand still pressing his arm. “What is this? What does it mean?” he demanded, turning white, and looking forward with a wild stare. “It is twenty years. I cannot go back to that, but—but—be quiet! Leave me alone!” The man walked forward unsteadily, and, like one impelled to an action against his own consciousness, until he came close to Eva, but with such noiseless action that she did not heed him. “Will you tell me your name?” Eva started. The voice that addressed her was so low and hoarse that surprise became almost terror in her. “My name? My—my name? Did you ask that?” “Yes—yes!” Eva turned her eyes on the white face which was reading hers with such pathetic earnestness, and all the angry surprise his abrupt address had kindled, died out under the sad penetration of his glance. “My name is Laurence—Eva Laurence,” she answered, with gentle courtesy. “Pray, why do you care to know?” “I can scarcely tell you, young lady. Excuse me, there must be some mistake. Laurence—did you say Laurence?” “That is my name.” “And your father?”