y, after a look of a single second, did her countenance
assume that expression of scorn or defiance? An expression quite apart
from any which might have rebuked the intrusive stare of a stranger;
which even attracted the notice of her companion, who glanced again at
Randolph, and then at his sister.

From that time, Randolph's attention was almost entirely engrossed by
his fascinating neighbour. He missed the statue's nod, and lost his
share of the laugh at Naldi's comic terror. His sister observed the
cause of his abstraction, and looked in the same direction, at a
moment when the elder lady happened to turn towards her.

"Surely," Helen exclaimed, "I have seen that face before! Yet how can
it be?"

Randolph knew right well, but he was silent.

"Do you know those ladies, Mrs. Winter?" Helen asked.

"No, Miss Morton. It is really a beautiful girl."

"Beautiful!" Randolph thought; "beautiful! Ay, she is more than
beautiful."

And the presentiment he had felt before came gloomily back upon his
heart.

But the fair stranger was not the only damsel who attracted admiration
in the opera-house that night.

"Who is that, Melcomb?" asked a portly, good-humoured personage,
leaning on the rail of the orchestra, and looking towards Mrs.
Winter's box. "A new face, is it not?"

"The girl with the bird of paradise in her hair?" answered Melcomb.
"Fie! Winesour. Have you forgotten Cressy?--Though, to be sure, the
gentle Cressida may have a new face to-night, or any night."

"Pooh! you know who I mean," Winesour persisted; "in the tier below."

"The pallid thing in black?" said Melcomb. "It's in a state of
willowhood. You see through a glass of Chambertin."

"May I never drink another," cried Winesour, with a quaint twinkle of
his small grey eye, "if she ever saw an opera before. Think you I have
no eyes? _Vorrei e non vorrei_. She followed Fodor's notes with her
lips apart, and tears in her eyes. She cried, Melcomb."

"Winesour turned enthusiastic for a pale-cheeked girl!" said Melcomb.
"What next? But I love not rhapsody, so--adieu!"

But while he chose to speak of Helen's appearance in these disparaging
terms, Melcomb had really observed her with admiration, and determined
to ascertain who she might be. He was one of those handsome, careless,
profligate fellows, who are too well regarded by the men, and too
easily pardoned by the women. One murder, it has been rather absurdly
said, makes a villain; ten thousand, a