had shone in her face since he had spoken of Pendleton's equal
disinterestedness. It seemed, too, as if what he had taken for
passion or petulance in her manner had been only a resistance to
some continual aggression of condition. With that remainder held
in check, a certain latent nobility was apparent, as of her true
self. In this moment of pleased abstraction she had drawn through
the lattice-work of one of the windows a spray of roses clinging to
the vine, and with her graceful head a little on one side, was
softly caressing her cheek with it. She certainly was very pretty.
From the crown of her dark little head to the narrow rosetted
slippers that had been idly tapping the ground, but now seemed to
press it more proudly, with arched insteps and small ankles, she
was pleasant to look upon.

"But you surely have something else to think about, Miss Yerba?"
said the young man, with conviction. "In a few months you will be
of age, and rid of those dreadfully stupid guardians; with your"--

The loosened rose-spray flew from her hand out of the window as she
made a gesture, half real, half assumed, of imploring supplication.
"Oh, please, Mr. Hathaway, for Heaven's sake don't YOU begin too!
You are going to say that, with my wealth, my accomplishments, my
beauty, my friends, what more can I want? What do I care about a
secret that can neither add to them nor take them away? Yes, you
were! It's the regular thing to say--everybody says it. Why, I
should have thought 'the youngest senator' could afford to have
been more original."

"I plead guilty to ALL the weaknesses of humanity," said Paul,
warmly, again beginning to believe that he had been most unjust to