domestic ruin on the other. But, with a heart of ice and nerves of
steel, he kept his hand on the helm.

His beautiful collection, though in an unpretentious store, at last
attracted attention, and after some little time it became _the_ thing in
the fashionable world to go there, and from that time forward his
fortune was made.

When his wife became a mother, there was a faint hope in Mr. Ludolph's
heart that this event might awaken the woman within her, if aught of
the true woman existed. He tried to treat her with more kindness, but
found it would not answer. She mistook it for weakness on his part.
From first to last she acted in the most heartless manner, and treated
the child with shameless neglect. This banished from her husband even
the shadow of regard, and he cursed her to her face. Thenceforth will
and ambition controlled his life and hers, and with an iron hand he
held her in check. She saw that she was in the power of a desperate
man, who would sacrifice her in a moment if she thwarted him.
Through cowardly fear she remained his reluctant but abject slave,
pricking him with the pins and needles of petty annoyances, when she
would have pierced him to the heart had she dared. This monstrous state
of affairs could not last forever, and, had not death terminated the
unnatural relation, some terrible catastrophe would no doubt have
occurred. Having contracted a western fever, she soon became delirious,
and passed away in this unconscious state, to the intense joy and
relief of her husband.

But the child lived, thrived, and developed into the graceful girl
whose beauty surpassed, as we have seen, even the painter's ideal. Her
father at first cared little for the infant, but secured it every