ated the earl dubiously--"an Indian name
perhaps; yet the Indians are many of them of excellent
family. An ancestor of mine..."

"Father," said Gwendoline, again interrupting, "here is
a portrait of Edwin. Judge for yourself if he be noble."
With this she placed in her father's hand an American
tin-type, tinted in pink and brown. The picture represented
a typical specimen of American manhood of that Anglo-Semitic
type so often seen in persons of mixed English and Jewish
extraction. The figure was well over five feet two inches
in height and broad in proportion. The graceful sloping
shoulders harmonized with the slender and well-poised
waist, and with a hand pliant and yet prehensile. The
pallor of the features was relieved by a drooping black
moustache.

Such was Edwin Einstein to whom Gwendoline's heart, if
not her hand, was already affianced. Their love had been
so simple and yet so strange. It seemed to Gwendoline
that it was but a thing of yesterday, and yet in reality
they had met three weeks ago. Love had drawn them
irresistibly together. To Edwin the fair English girl
with her old name and wide estates possessed a charm that
he scarcely dared confess to himself. He determined to
woo her. To Gwendoline there was that in Edwin's bearing,
the rich jewels that he wore, the vast fortune that rumour
ascribed to him, that appealed to something romantic and
chivalrous in her nature. She loved to hear him speak of
stocks and bonds, corners and margins, and his father's
colossal business. It all seemed so noble and so far
above the sordid lives of the people about her. Edwin,
too, loved to hear the girl talk of her father's estates,
of the diamond-hilted sword that the saladin had given,
or had lent, to her ancestor hundreds of years ago. Her
description of her father, the old earl, touched something
romantic in Edwin's generous heart. He was never tired
of asking how old he was, was he robust, did a shock, a
sudden shock, affect him much? and so on. Then had come
the evening that Gwendoline loved to live over and over
again in her mind when Edwin had asked her in his
straightforward, manly way, whether--subject to certain
written stipulations to be considered later--she would
be his wife: and she, putting her hand confidingly in
his hand, answered simply, that--subject to the consent
of her father and pending always the necessary legal
formalities and inquiries--she would.

It had all seemed like a dream: and n