Saloon. Lost his week's wages. I reckon--seventy dollars--on red. Never
came again." There was, however, no trace of this in the calm eyes and
unmoved face that he turned upon the stranger, who, on the contrary,
blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated and then stopped with an
involuntary motion that brought the carriage and its fair occupant face
to face with Mr. Oakhurst.

I should hardly do justice to the position she will occupy in this
veracious chronicle by describing the lady now, if, indeed, I am able to
do it at all. Certainly the popular estimate was conflicting. The late
Col. Starbottle--to whose large experience of a charming sex I have
before been indebted for many valuable suggestions--had, I regret to
say, depreciated her fascinations. "A yellow-faced cripple, by dash!
a sick woman, with mahogany eyes; one of your blanked spiritual
creatures--with no flesh on her bones." On the other hand, however, she
enjoyed later much complimentary disparagement from her own sex. Miss
Celestina Howard, second leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had,
with great alliterative directness, in after-years, denominated her
as an "aquiline asp." Mlle. Brimborion remembered that she had always
warned "Mr. Jack" that this woman would "empoison" him. But Mr.
Oakhurst, whose impressions are perhaps the most important, only saw a
pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised above the level of her companion
by the refinement of long suffering and isolation, and a certain shy
virginity of manner. There was a suggestion of physical purity in the
folds of her fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque tastefulness
in the details, that, without knowing why, made him think that the robe
was her invention and handiwork, even as the carriage she occupied was
evidently the work of her companion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin,
but well-shaped, subtle-fingered, and gentle-womanly, rested on the side
of the carriage, the counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp of her