ench and music, the
two justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no ground for
uneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and
positive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons
are born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to
impresses them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on
it, who can wonder if Gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny?

There were many subjects in the world--perhaps the majority--in which
she felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to
appear stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she
would not have felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had
turned up in conversation. It must be remembered that no one had
disputed her power or her general superiority. As on the arrival at
Offendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been,
what will Gwendolen think?--if the footman trod heavily in creaking
boots, or if the laundress's work was unsatisfactory, the maid said,
"This will never do for Miss Harleth"; if the wood smoked in the
bedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much from
this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to Gwendolen. If, when
they were under the stress of traveling, she did not appear at the
breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only question
was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest
and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed
light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to
coil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx
from under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be
tolerant--to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up
her shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of
pushing up to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry.

Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have
her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin
ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork
kept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer
may seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain
unusualness about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her
graceful movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came
into the room on a rainy day when eve