saucily shaking her curls off her face. "I should have looked better
than some of them, I'll be bound. I'm dead beat with fatigue. I've had
all the work dressing them, and they are to get all the fun."

She was silent for some few minutes, and Mathias grew anxious.

What could be going forward?

He would vastly like to know.

Unable to control his curiosity, he peeped out, and then he saw pretty
Marietta's portrait in the long looking-glass panel.

She looked prettier than ever now, for, shocking to relate, the young
lady was undressing.

Mathias was not to say a bashful man, so he did not draw back.

On the contrary, he stared with all his eyes.

Pretty Marietta little thought, as she stood before the glass, that
such a desperate villain was watching every movement.

Marietta, wholly unconscious that she was watched by the vile brigand
chief, walked up and down before the glass, shooting admiring glances
at herself over her white and well rounded shoulders.

"Dress, and rank, and money do wonders," she said. "Why are we not all
about equal? I'm as good as the best of them, I'm sure, and very much
better looking."