s, that blended gentleness with an air of
command, a certain instinctive acceptance of whatever deference was
shown her as a matter of right and due, all spoke of "blood;" and
her walk, her voice, her slightest gesture, were in keeping with this
impression. Even they who liked her least, and were most jealous of
her fascination, never called her Princess in any mockery. No, strange
enough, the title was employed with all the significance of respect, and
as such did she receive it.

If it were not that, in her capricious moods, Nature has moulded
stranger counterfeits than this, we might incur some risk of incredulity
from our reader when we say that the Princess was no other than Grog
Davis's daughter!

Davis had been a man of stratagems from his very beginning in life.
All his gains had been acquired by dexterity and trick. Whatever he had
accomplished was won as at a game where some other paid the loss. His
mind, consequently, fashioned itself to the condition in which he lived,
and sharpness and shrewdness and over-reaching seemed to him not alone
the only elements of success, but the only qualities worth honoring. He
had seen honesty and imbecility so often in company that he thought
them convertible terms; and yet this man--"leg," outcast, knave that
he was--rose above all the realities of a life of roguery in one
aspiration,--to educate his child in purity, to screen her from the
contamination of his own set, to bring her up amongst all the refining
influences of care and culture, and make her, as he said to himself,
"the equal of the best lady in the land!" To place her amongst the
well-born and wealthy, to have her where her origin could not be traced,
where no clew would connect her with himself, had cost him a greater
exercise of ingenuity than the deepest scheme he had ever plotted on
the turf. That exchange of references on which Madame Godarde's
exclusiveness so peremptorily insisted was only to be met at heavy
cost. The distinguished baronet who stood sponsor to Grog Davis's
respectability received cash for the least promising of promissory notes
in return, and the lady who waited on Madame Godarde in her brougham "to
make acquaintance with the person who was to have charge of her young
relative," was the distracted mother of a foolish young man who had
given bills to Davis for several thousands, and who by this special
mission obtained possession of the documents. In addition to these
direct, there were