Veronica was now nearly eighteen, and during her absence had
blossomed into womanhood. She was not as beautiful as her sister,
but she had a bright and pleasing expression with enough spice in
her temperament to rob her girlish features of insipidity and make
her conversation witty, if not brilliant. Yet when Francis Jeffrey
turned his attentions from Miss Tuttle and fixed them without
reserve, or seeming shame, upon this pretty butterfly, but one
term could be found to characterize the proceeding, and that was,
fortune hunting. Of small but settled income, he had hitherto shown
a certain contentment with his condition calculated to inspire
respect and make his attentions to Miss Tuttle seem both consistent
and appropriate. But no sooner did Veronica's bright eyes appear
than he fell at the young heiress' feet and pressed his suit so
close and fast that in two months they were engaged and at the end
of the half-year, married - with the disastrous consequences just
made known.

So much for the general gossip of the town. Now for the special.

A certain gentleman, whom it is unnecessary to name, had been present
at one critical instant in the lives of these three persons. He was
not a scandalmonger, and if everything had gone on happily, if
Veronica had lived and Cora settled down into matrimony, he would
never have mentioned what he heard and saw one night in the great
drawing-room of a hotel in Atlantic City.

It was at the time when the engagement was first announced between
Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to
Cora had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there