questions, and will to your dying day. No help for it, I suppose, but
patience; but it is all of that Gipsy blood! Now, Evelyn's line of
people was altogether different. She has what they used to call in
England 'blue blood in her veins;' do you understand, Miriam? Blue
blood! Catch her asking indiscreet questions! Take pattern by your elder
sister, Miss Miriam Monfort, and you will do well."

Not knowing what evil I had done, or how I had offended, or how blood
could be _blue_, yet sorry for having erred, I made my way as I was told
to do, speedily and silently homeward, and was glad to find shelter from
all misunderstanding and persecution in the arms and shadow of my "mamma
Constance," as I called her from that hour.

But, to Evelyn she was "Mistress Monfort," from the time she espoused my
father; and the coldness between them (they were never very congenial)
was apparent from that time, in spite of every effort on the part of my
sweet mamma to surmount and throw it aside.

It is time I should speak of those few neighbors who composed our
society at this period, and to whom some allusion has already been
made--the occupants of those two houses which, as I have said, divided
with ours the square we lived in, with their grounds. These green-shaded
yards were divided one from the other by slender iron railings, which
formed a line of boundary, no more, and presented no obstacle to the
exploring eye. Graceful gates of the same material opened from the
pavement, common to all, and presented a symmetrical and uniform
appearance to the passer-by. Stone lions guarded ours, but Etruscan
vases crowned the portals of Mrs. Stanbury and Mr. Bainrothe, filled
with blooming plants in the summer season, but bare and desolate and
gray enough in winter.