it from a side-view, one finds one's self instinctively wondering how
much leaner it can get before kindly death steps in to put a stop to
its growth. And yet it matches well with the lips, which, curving
downward, and thin to a fault, either from pain or temper, denote only
ill-will toward fellow-man, together with a certain cruelty that takes
its keenest pleasure in another's mental suffering.

Great piercing eyes gleam out from under heavy brows, and, looking
straight at one, still withhold their inmost thoughts. Intellect
(wrongly directed, it may be, yet of no mean order) and a fatal desire
for power sparkle in them; while the disappointment, the terrible
self-accusing sadness that must belong to the closing of such a life as
comes of such a temperament as his, lingers round his mouth. He is
meagre, shrunken,--altogether unlovely.

Now, as he glances up at Marcia, a pettishness, born of the sickness
that has been consuming him for the past week, is his all-prevailing
expression. Raising a hand fragile and white as a woman's, he beckons
her to his side.

"How you dawdle!" he says, fretfully. "Do you forget there are other
people in the world besides yourself? Where have you been?"

"Have I been long, dear?" says Marcia, evasively, with the tenderest
air of solicitude, shaking up his pillows and smoothing the crumpled
dressing-gown with careful fingers. "Have you missed me? And yet only a
few minutes have really passed."

"Where have you been?" reiterates he, irritably, taking no notice of
her comfortable pats and shakes.

"With Philip."

"Ay, 'with Philip.' Always Philip. I doubt me the course of your love
runs too smoothly to be true. And yet it was a happy thought to keep
the old man's money well together." With a sneer.

"Dear grandpapa, we did not think of money, but that we love each
other."

"Love--pish! do not talk to me of it. I thought you too shrewd, Marcia,
to be misled by a mirage. It is a myth,--no more,--a sickening, mawkish
tale. Had he no prospects, and were you penniless, I wonder how far
'love' would guide you?"

"To the end," says Marcia, quickly. "What has money to do with it? It
can neither be bought nor sold. It is a poor affection that would
wither under poverty; at least it would have no fears for us."

"Us,--us," returns this detestable old pagan, with a malicious chuckle.
"How sure we are! how positive! ready to risk our all upon our lover's
truth! Yet, were I to question th