was very sure, from the dark, anxious look upon her face
when she came from her room, whither she had repaired immediately after
breakfast, but whatever her suspicions were they did not find form in
words. Mark was lost. It was too late to help that now, and as a politic
woman of the world, Mrs. Cameron decided to let the matter rest, and by
patronizing the young bride prove that she had never thought of Mark
Ray for her son-in-law. Hence it was that the Cameron carriage and the
Grandon carriage stood together before Mrs. Banker's door, while the
ladies who had come in the carriages paid their respects to Mrs. Ray,
rallying her upon the march she had stolen upon them, telling her how
delighted they were to have her back again, and hoping they should see a
great deal of each other during the coming winter.

"You know we are related," Juno said, holding Helen's hand a long time
at parting, ostensibly to show how very friendly she felt, but really to
examine and calculate the probable value of the superb diamond which
shone on Helen's finger, Mark's first gift, left for her with his
mother, who had presented it for him.

"As diamonds are now, that never cost less than four or five hundred
dollars," Juno said, as she was discussing the matter with Bell, and
telling her that Helen had the ring they had admired so much at
Tiffany's the last time they were there, and then her spiteful, envious
nature found vent in the remark: "I wonder at Mark's taste when only
shoddy buy diamonds now."

"Why, then, did you torment father into buying that little pin for you
the other day?" Bell asked, and Juno replied:

"I have always been accustomed to diamonds and that is a very different
thing from Helen Lennox putting them on. Did you notice how red and fat
her fingers were, and rough, too? Positively her hand felt like a nutmeg
grater."

"You know the fable of the fox and the grapes," Bell said, her gray eyes
flashing indignantly upon her sister, who, wisely forbore further
remarks upon Helen's hands and contented herself with wondering if
people generally would take up Mrs. Ray and honor her as they once did
Katy.

"Of course they will," she said. "It's like heaps of them to do it," and
in this conclusion she was not wrong, for those who had liked Helen
Lennox did not find her less desirable now that she was Helen Ray, and
numberless were the attentions bestowed upon her and the invitations she
received.

But with few exception