intelligence and
sense of higher worth coming to her rescue, she thought: "Let me see all
that is of this Tartar, for, perhaps, there may be another way to his
mercy."

As she recovered composure, however, she grew more beautiful in his
sight, her dark, peerless charms filling the room, her kindling eyes
conveying love, her skin like the wild plum's, and her raven brows and
crown of luxuriant hair rising upon a queenly presence worthy of an
empress's throne. Such beauty almost made Milburn afraid, but the
energies of his character were all concentrated to secure it.

"Who _are_ you?" she asked, with a calm, searching look, cast from her
highest self-respect and alert intelligence. "Have you any relations or
connections fit to bring here--to this house, to me?"

"Not one that I know," said the forester. "I am nothing but myself, and
what you will make of me."

"Where were you born and reared?"

"The house does not stand which witnessed that misery," spoke Milburn,
with a flush of obdurate pride; "it was burned last night, not far from
the furnace which swallowed your father's substance."

"Why, I would be afraid of you, Mr. Milburn, if your errand here was not
so practical. Omens and wonders surround you. Birds forget their natural
life for you. Iron ceases to be occult when you take it up. Your
birthplace in this world disappears by fire the night before you
foreclose a mortgage upon a gentleman's daughter. Is all this sorcery
inseparable from that necromancer's Hat you wear in Princess Anne?"

She had touched the sensitive topic by a skilful approach, yet he
changed color, as if the allusion piqued him.

"Nature never rebuked my hat, Miss Vesta, and you are so like nature, it
will not occupy your thoughts. I recollect the day you decorated my old
hat; said I: 'perhaps this vagrant head-covering, after all its injuries
and wanderings, may some day find a peg beneath my own roof, and the
kind welcome of a lady like that little miss.' That was several years
ago, and to-day, for the first time, my hat is on the rack of your hall.
The long wish of the heart is not often denied. We are not responsible
for it. The only conspiracy I have plotted here, was that I did not
oppose most natural occurrences, all drawing towards this scene. My
magic was hope and humility. I dared to wear my ancestor's hat in the
face of a contemptuous and impertinent provincial public, and it gave me
the pride to persevere till I should bri