that the fairy could be a tormenting elf. She would not marry
the young gentleman with whom her name was at present associated
by the gossips, and who had driven over that morning to help her
entertain the expected guests. Mr. Harcourt and Miss Marchmont
understood each other. He was a distant relative of her mother's,
and so under the disguise of kinship could be very familiar.
The tie between them was composed of one part friendship and two
parts flirtation. He had recently begun the practice of law in a
neighboring town, and found the Marchmont residence a very agreeable
place at which to spend his leisure. It was Miss Marchmont's
purpose that he should form one of the gay party that would make
the holiday season a prolonged frolic. He, nothing loath, accepted
the invitation, and appeared in time for dinner. To many he seemed
to possess a dual nature. He had a quick, keen intellect, and,
during business hours, gave an absorbed attention to his profession.
At other times he was equally well known as a sporting man, with
tendencies somewhat fast.

Mrs. Marchmont's well-appointed dining-room was peculiarly attractive
that wintry day. Finished off in some dark wood on which the ruddy
hickory fire glistened warmly, it made a pleasing contrast to the
cold whiteness of the snow without. A portly colored waiter in dress
coat seemed the appropriate presiding genius of the place, and in
his ebon hands the polished silver and crystal were doubly luminous.

And yet the family, with its lack of original force, its fading
traditions of past greatness, made rather a dim and neutral tint,
against which such a girl as Charlotte Marsden appeared as the
glowing embodiment of the vivid and intense spirit of the present
age. Her naturally energetic and mercurial nature had been cradled