always carried a fan
winter and summer, some said for the purpose of displaying those same
jewelled fingers--was sufficient answer for her.

At that moment there was a hush, when suddenly the small clock on the
mantel-piece struck eleven, and instantly as if awaiting the signal,
there came a rush and a heavy crash which drew every one to their feet,
and the brilliant portrait of my lady fell from the wall, and toppling
over the cabinet beneath, slid with the various articles of bronze and
china thereon, almost to the very chair in which its handsome prototype
had been sitting.

It was a startling interruption and for an instant no one spoke, then
Paula with a look towards her cousin breathed to herself rather than
said, "Pray God it be not an omen!" And the pale countenances of the two
gentlemen standing face to face on either side of that fallen picture,
showed that the shadow of the same superstition had insensibly crossed
their own minds.

Mrs. Sylvester was the only one who remained unmoved. "Lift if up,"
cried she, "and let us see if it has sustained any injury."

Instantly Bertram and her husband sprang forward, and in a moment its
glowing surface was turned upward. Who could read the meaning of the
look that crossed her husband's face as he perceived that the sharp
spear of the bronze horseman, which had been overturned in the fall, had
penetrated the rosy countenance of the portrait and destroyed that
importunate smile forever.

"I suppose it is a judgment upon me for putting all the money you had
allowed me for charitable purposes, into that exquisite bit of bronze,"
observed Mrs. Sylvester, stooping above the overturned horseman with an
expression of regret she had not chosen to bestow on her own ruined
picture. "Ah he is less of a champion than I imagined; he has lost his
spear in the struggle."

Paula glanced at her cousin in surprise. Was this pleasantry only a veil
assumed by this courtly lady to hide her very natural regret over the
more serious accident? Even her husband turned toward her with a certain
puzzled inquiry in his troubled countenance. But her expression of
unconcern was too natural; evidently the destruction of the picture had
awakened but small regret in her volatile mind.

"She is less vain than I thought," was the inward comment of Paula.

Ah simple child of the woods and streams, it is the extent of her vanity
not the lack of it, that has produced this effect. She has begun to