But that was not all: even had her hair been tied up, as it should have been, in the classic knot, the something inconsistent would still have been present. It lay in the strange difference of expression between the eyes and mouth. Looking into her eyes, those large violet long-lashed eyes that are perhaps the most beautiful of all, one could read in them delightful possibilities of love, womanly tenderness, the desire for sympathy, indeed the look that attracts man to woman. But looking from the eyes to the mouth a chill would come over the observer, a disappointment, a feeling as if a barrier were set up between him and her, an obstacle that kept off love and sympathy. For that mouth, beautiful in its moulding, was yet so firm, so hard, not a sad mouth in any way, but stern, almost cruel. It was on the mouth that the demon of strong hate, which the father had conjured up to his daughter, had placed his mark. The woman, the angel in her, looked out of those pathetic eyes. One could easily foretell that hers would be a life of suffering--the suffering of the strong, of fierce conflict between good and evil. The signs of battle were already on that young face. Would the tender eyes come to look cold and hard, and the mouth wax firmer and wickeder, or would the good angel win the day? would the eyes become tenderer still, and the mouth soften to lines of sweetness and womanly kindness? As with women from the beginning, so with her--the victory depended upon the MAN; upon whether when he came he threw his strong alliance with the powers of good or evil. So far it was an equal battle. Mary at sixteen wanted but little to make of her either a devil as only woman can be, or an angel as only woman can be--which would she become? CHAPTER II. ON THE ROAD TO RUIN. It is not so much the custom now as formerly for unmarried men, barristers and others, to reside in the Temple and the other ancient Inns of Court. How many of us look back with a sigh of regret to that old jovial free bachelor life in the snug chambers! Indeed, those were pleasant days. To those who have led that life how full of associations is busy Fleet Street! Ah me! the old taverns we frequented in our youth--the familiar faces of the waiters in them who knew us and all our ways so well. The boon-companionship of fellow-barristers, Bohemian litterateurs, and all the wild, witty manhood that used to haunt that neighbourhood. Temple Bar was the centre of a land as interesting in its way as the Quartier Latin was--a Cocagne of barristers, writers, and actors;--a jovial trio of professions that much fraternise with each other even in these sober respectable and rather dull days.