ldren,' with all my heart! And I should
enrich the impecunious young son, or reform the tipsy soldier. Anything
but the convent for my only child!" concluded the banker, with a sigh.

But Salome had ceased to think of the convent. She thought now only of
the missing marquis.

The offers of marriage that had been made to Salome, rejected though they
were, had this good effect upon her mind. They encouraged her to think
more hopefully of herself. Salome was too unworldly, too pure, and holy,
to suspect that these offers had been made her from any other motive than
personal preference. It was possible, then, that she might be loved. If
other men preferred her, so also might he on whom she had fixed. And now
it had come to this with the dreaming girl--she resolved to think no more
of retiring to a convent, but to live in the world that contained her
hero; to keep herself free from all engagements for his sake, to give
_herself_ to him, if possible, if not to give his land back to him
some day, at least. So in her secret soul she consecrated herself in a
pure devotion to a man she had never seen, and who did not even know of
her existence.

When Parliament rose at the end of the London season, Sir Lemuel Levison
took his daughter on an extended Continental tour, showing her all the
wonders of nature, and all the glories of art in countries and cities.
And Salome was interested and instructed, of course. Yet the greatest
value her travels had for her was in the possibility of their bringing
her to a meeting with the missing heir. It had been said that the mad
duke and his son were somewhere on the Continent. A wide field! Yet, on
the arrival of Sir Lemuel and Miss Levison at any city, Salome's first
thought was this:

"Perhaps they are living here, and I shall see him."

But she was always disappointed. And at the end of a seven months'
sojourn on the Continent, Sir Lemuel Levison brought his daughter back
to London, only in time for the meeting of Parliament.

Only two years of Salome's probation was left--only two more seasons
in London. Her father's anxiety increased.

He sent for her chaperone again, and opened his house in Westbourne
Terrace to all the world of fashion. Again the young heiress was
followed, flattered, feted as much as if she had been a beauty as well.
Again she received and rejected several eligible offers of marriage. And
so the second season passed.

Sir Lemuel Levison took his daughter to Sco