corrupt city,--to have suffered her to be seen and to be ensnared by
those gallants ever on the watch for defenceless beauty; and to contrast
with their elegance of mien and fatal flatteries the grossness of the
companions selected for her, and the unloving discomfort of the home into
which she had been thrown. But now that St. John had appeared, that
Helen's heart and fancy were steeled alike against more dangerous
temptation, the object to be obtained from the pressing courtesy of Mrs.
Mivers existed no more. The vengeance flowed into other channels.

The only other visitors at the house were John Ardworth and Gabriel
Varney.

Madame Dalibard watched vigilantly the countenance and manner of Ardworth
when, after presenting him to Percival, she whispered: "I am glad you
assured me as to your sentiments for Helen. She had found there the
lover you wished for her,--'gay and handsome as herself.'"

And in the sudden paleness that overspread Ardworth's face, in his
compressed lips and convulsive start, she read with unspeakable rage the
untold secret of his heart, till the rage gave way to complacency at the
thought that the last insult to her wrongs was spared her,--that her son
(as son she believed he was) could not now, at least, be the successful
suitor of her loathed sister's loathed child. Her discovery, perhaps,
confirmed her in her countenance to Percival's progressive wooing, and
half reconciled her to the pangs it inflicted on herself.

At the first introduction Ardworth had scarcely glanced at Percival. He
regarded him but as the sleek flutterer in the sunshine of fortune. And
for the idle, the gay, the fair, the well-dressed and wealthy, the sturdy
workman of his own rough way felt something of the uncharitable disdain