gularly clear, but low and _trainante_. She is
tall and very dark, with rich wavy black hair and eyes of the same hue,
deep and soft as velvet. Her nose is Grecian; her lips a trifle thin.
She is distinctly handsome, but does not so much as border on the
beautiful.

As she turns from the showy bird with a little shrug of disdain at its
vanity or of disgust at its odious cry, she finds herself face to face
with a young man who has followed almost in her footsteps.

He, too, is tall and dark, and not altogether unlike her. But his face
shows the passion that hers rather conceals than lacks, and, though
sufficiently firm, is hardly as determined as hers. There is also a
certain discontent about the lower part of the jaw in which she is
wanting, and there are two or three wrinkles on his forehead, of which
her broad, low brow is innocent.

"Well, Philip?" she says, anxiously, as he reaches her side.

"Oh, it is of no use," he replies, with a quick frown, "I could not get
up my courage to the sticking-point, and if I had I firmly believe it
would only have smashed my cause the more completely. Debt is his one
abhorrence, or rather--he has so many--his deepest. To ask for that two
thousand pounds would be my ruin."

"I wish I had it to give you," she says, gently, laying her hand--a
very beautiful hand, but not small--upon his arm.

"Thank you, my dear," replies he, lightly, "but your good wishes do not
get me out of my hobble. Money I must have within seven days, and money
I have not. And if our grandfather discovers my delinquencies it will
be all UP with me. By the bye, Marcia, I can hardly expect you to
sympathize with me, as that would be so much the better for you, eh?"

"Nothing the better," says Marcia, calmly; "it would be always the same
thing. I should share with you."

"What a stake it is to play for!" says the young man, wearily, with a
distasteful gesture. "Is even twenty thousand pounds a year worth
it?--the perpetual paying court, every day, and all day long? Sometimes
I doubt it."

"It is well worth it," says Marcia, firmly. "How can you doubt it? All
the good this world contains might be written under the name of
'money.' There is no happiness without it."

"There is love, however, and contentment."

"Don't believe it. Love may be purchased; and as for contentment, there
is no such thing. It is a dream, a fable, a pretty story that babes may
swallow."

"Yet they tell us money is the root of al