Nature had made Philippa L'Estrange beautiful, circumstances had helped to make her proud. Her father, Lord L'Estrange, died when she was quite a child, leaving her an enormous fortune that was quite under her own control. Her mother, Lady L'Estrange, had but one idea in life, and that was indulging her beautiful daughter in her every caprice. Proud, beautiful, and wealthy, when she most needed her mother's care that mother died, leaving her sole mistress of herself. She was but seventeen then, and was known as one of the wealthiest heiresses and loveliest girls of the day. Her first step was, in the opinion of the world, a wise one; she sent for a widowed cousin, Lady Peters, to live with her as chaperon. For the first year after her mother's death she remained at Verdun Royal, the family estate. After one year given to retirement, Philippa L'Estrange thought she had mourned for her mother after the most exemplary fashion She was just nineteen when she took her place again in the great world, one of its brightest ornaments. An afternoon in London in May. The air was clear and fresh; there was in it a faint breath of the budding chestnuts, the hawthorn and lilac; the sun shone clear and bright, yet not too warmly. On this afternoon Miss L'Estrange sat in the drawing-room of the magnificent family mansion in Hyde Park. The whole world could not have produced a more marvelous picture. The room itself was large, lofty, well proportioned, and superbly furnished; the hangings were of pale-rose silk and white lace the pictures and statues were gems of art, a superb copy of the Venus of Milo gleaming white and shapely from between the folds of rose silk, also a marble Flora, whose basket was filled with purple heliotropes, and a Psyche that was in itself a dream of beauty; the vases were filled with fairest and most fragrant flowers. Nothing that art, taste, or luxury could suggest was wanting--the eye reveled in beauty. Miss L'Estrange had refurnished the room in accordance with her own ideas of the beautiful and artistic. The long windows were opened, and through them one saw the rippling of the rich green foliage in the park; the large iron balconies were filled with flowers, fragrant mignonette, lemon-scented verbenas, purple heliotropes, all growing in rich profusion. The spray of the little scented fountain sparkled in the sun. Every one agreed that there was no other room in London like the grand drawing-room at Verdun House.