Marian Fletcher was certainly beautiful enough to excuse the jealousy of any man who loved her,--which, by the way, most men who knew her did! She was sufficiently a woman also to realize her own beauty--indeed, did ever daughter of Eve possess a charm of which she lacked knowledge? Even the most absolute _ingénue_ is conscious that she is an _ingénue_, and Marian Fletcher was by no means that. And her wit and humor were not the least of her charms. She was gayety personified, light-hearted, healthy and red-cheeked, and joyous--quite a new woman for 1815, in fact; and that, too, in an artificial age in which languor and pallor, megrims and vapors were the fashion, "Nice customs curt'sy to"--beautiful women, and Marian had a fashion of her own. One word described the sum of her qualities,--fascination! Even her best friends were forced to admit that she was a bit of a coquette, however. Indeed, if the truth were told, from the crown of her black hair, which brought to mind the usual simile of the raven's wing, down to her beautiful little feet, she was all of a coquette. She loved liberty, she loved love, she loved lovers. In addition to all of these things it might be said that, in her secret heart, she loved Robert Gardner. Whether she loved him more than she did the other three was a question which she had not settled to her own satisfaction, and about which Gardner himself was fearfully undecided. She had said--but then she made many perjuries before the laughing Jove. She had permitted him to enjoy the fleeting and most unsatisfying pleasure of pressing his lips upon her brow. He believed that this was a step farther--he would have resented furiously any suggestion to the contrary--than any other suitor had gone. It was. She had allowed him to persuade her into a sort of an engagement, but the tie resulting was about as indefinite as could be imagined. With him--he was a sailor and his similes were nautical--it was a hempen cable which held him to her like a ship to a bower anchor. With her it was a daisy chain, ready to part at the first strain, and the strain was near at hand.