association awoke in him. That girl, atoning as it were by her one
white life for all the crimes and coarseness of her ancestry: the
idea of her seemed to steal into the solemn golden evening and give
it added poetry and meaning. The young man felt a sudden strong
curiosity to see her.



CHAPTER III.

The festal tea had begun and Mrs. Thornburgh was presiding. Opposite
to her, on the vicar's left, sat the formidable rector's wife.
Poor Mrs. Thornburgh had said to herself as she entered the room
on the arm of Mr. Mayhew, the incumbent of the neighboring valley
of Shanmoor, that the first _coup d'aeil_ was good. The flowers
had been arranged in the afternoon by Rose; Sarah's exertions had
made the silver shine again; a pleasing odor of good food underlay
the scent of the bluebells and fern; and what with the snowy
table-linen, and the pretty dresses and bright faces of the younger
people, the room seemed to be full of an incessant play of crisp
and delicate color.

But just as the vicar's wife was sinking into her seat with a little
sigh of wearied satisfaction, she caught sight suddenly of an
eye-glass at the other end of the table slowly revolving in a large
and jewelled hand. The judicial eye behind the eye-glass travelled
round the table, lingering, as it seemed to Mrs. Thornburgh's excited
consciousness, on every spot where cream or jelly or _meringue_
should have been and was not. When it dropped with a harsh little
click, the hostess, unable to restrain herself, rushed into desperate