heart full of pain and rage against fate. Here she sat down before the
fire, and, resting her chin on her two hands, gazed steadily into the
glowing coals.

What pictures did she see of past miseries there in the flames? Her
thoughts wandered right back to the beginning. The stern, peculiar
father, and the gloomy castle. The severe governesses--English and
German--and her adorable, beautiful mother, descending upon the
schoolroom like a fairy of light, always gay and sweet and loving. And
then of that journey to a far country, where she saw an old, old, dying
gentleman in a royal palace, who kissed her, and told her she would
grow as beautiful as her grandmother with the red, red hair. And there
in the palace was Mimo, so handsome and kind in his glittering
aide-de-camp's uniform, who after that often came to the gloomy castle,
and, with the fairy mother, to the schoolroom. Ah! those days were happy
days! How they three had shrieked with laughter and played hide-and-seek
in the long galleries!

And then the blank, hideous moment when the angel fairy had gone, and
the stern father cursed and swore, and Uncle Francis' face looked like a
vengeful fiend's. And then a day when she got word to meet her mother in
the park of the castle. How she clung to her and cried and sobbed to be
taken, too! And they--Mimo and the mother--always so kind and loving and
irresponsible, consented. And then the flight; and weeks of happiness in
luxurious hotels, until the mother's face grew pinched and white, and no
letters but her own--returned--came from Uncle Francis. And ever the
fear grew that if Mimo were absent from her for a moment Uncle Francis
would kill him. The poor, adored mother! And then of the coming of
Mirko and all their joy over it; and then, gradually, the skeleton of
poverty, when all the jewels had been sold and all Mimo's uniform and