With so many influences brought to bear upon him, he began to wonder at himself. Why could he not care for this beautiful girl who was so unhappy about him? for he remembered that she had loved him long ago--when, in her girlish anger and jealousy, she had said: "You have made love to my sister, and you have made love to me; you have won both our hearts. Now choose between us!" She was older and more cultured now--perhaps ashamed of her early madness--yet the love was there still. Had he indeed encouraged it only to nip the fair flower in the bud? He remembered that he certainly had admired her very much--had even cherished some romantic thoughts about making her his bride, until sweet Flower put it all out of his head. The thought came to him for the first time, that perhaps there had been some justice in her charge. She had been so young, so unversed in the ways of the world, that a few gallant words and admiring glances had wiled her heart from her forever. Flower was dead and gone--why could he not tear his heart from his perished love and give it to her unhappy sister? It seemed to him that Flower--dear, gentle girl--herself would have wished it. "Pity is akin to love," it is said. He began to feel very sorry for Jewel, who, with all her gifts of youth, beauty, and wealth, was so unutterably lonely, and so unhappy through her hopeless love. The moment came when this sympathy, combined with admiration for her beauty, led him into the belief that he loved her at last. He proposed for her hand, and was accepted with a rapture that almost startled him with its intensity. To-night, as he lingered by her side, he felt proud of his fiancee, so beautiful and so loving. He smiled into her eyes, and thought within himself that the day would come when he would be almost as fond of her as he had been of Flower. They were sitting _tete-a-tete_ on a velvet couch in the long drawing-room, when their hostess approached, and asked, eagerly: "Have either of you seen Lord Ivon's heiress, the great English beauty? She is here to-night, and people are raving over her loveliness. But you need not be afraid of a rival, Miss Fielding, as her type is the opposite of your own. I do not praise one of my own sex often," laughingly; "but I will own that she is, as the poet laureate of her own land aptly says, 'Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless.'" "Indeed? I am very anxious to see her!" exclaimed Jewel, with a half sneer; but Laurie Meredith only laughed. He thought he had seen so many English beauties while abroad; and, after all, none could compare, in his own mind, with the lovely women of his native land. "Where is she, Mrs. Devere?" continued Jewel, angrily, eager to look upon one of whom she was furiously jealous, only because report said that she was wondrously lovely.