The circumstances and associations of her early life had destroyed her faith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither comprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism she was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale of selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont to weigh men and women. Her irregular method of study and desultory reading had rather enervated than strengthened a mind naturally clear and vigorous, and left its acquisitions in a confused and kaleidoscopic mass, bordering upon intellectual salmagundi. One warm afternoon, on his return from town, as Dr. Grey ascended the steps he noticed Salome reclining on a bamboo settee at the western end of the gallery, where the sunshine was hot and glaring, unobstructed by the thin leafy screen of vines that drooped from column to column on the southern and eastern sides of the building. If conscious of his approach she vouchsafed not the slightest intimation of it, and when he stood beside her she remained so immovable that he might have imagined her asleep but for the lambent light which rayed out from eyes that seemed intently numbering the soft fluttering young leaves on a distant clump of elm trees, which made a lace-like tracery of golden glimmer and quivering shadow on the purple-headed clover at their feet. Her fair but long slender fingers carelessly held a book that threatened to slip from their light relaxing grasp, and compressing his lips in order to smother a smile under his heavy moustache, Dr. Grey stooped and put his hand on her plump white wrist, where the blue veins were running riot. "So young,--yet cataleptic! Unfortunate, indeed," he murmured. She shook off his touch, and instantly sat erect. "I should be glad to know what you mean." "I have an admirable, nay, I venture to add, an almost infallible prescription for catalepsy, which has cured two chronic and apparently hopeless cases, and it will afford me great pleasure to try the third experiment upon you, since you seem pitiably in want of a remedy." "Thank you. Were I as free from all other ills that 'flesh is heir to,' as I certainly am of the taint of catalepsy, I might indeed congratulate myself upon an immunity which would obviate the dire necessity of ever meeting a physician." "Are you sure that you sufficiently understand the symptoms, to recognize them unerringly?" The rose tint in her cheeks deepened to scarlet, as she haughtily drew herself up to her full height, and answered,-- "Dr. Grey himself is not more sagacious and adroit in detecting them; especially when open eyes discover unwelcome and disagreeable objects, which, wishing to avoid, they are still compelled to see. I hope you are satisfied that I comprehend you."