e to face with the lady who had before attracted their
observation. She swept haughtily past them, without seeming to be
aware of their surprise, and was followed by Mildred, leaning on the
arm of Melcomb.

"It was the miniature," Helen whispered to her brother, who had become
suddenly pale.

In a few moments Melcomb returned to the crush room, and observed the
strangers with a well-bred stare. Randolph frowned, and the coxcomb
smiled. Mrs. Winter's carriage was called. Melcomb noted the name, and
learnt the destination. For the present it was enough. The beau had
become too idle and indifferent to be very mischievous. He accepted a
sensation if it fell in his path, but he would not go out of his way
to seek one. "Hampstead's a great distance," he muttered, and drove to
the Argyll Rooms.

CHAPTER X.

"He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun:
Himself is his own dungeon."

MILTON.

Extremely startled was Mrs. Pendarrel by the appearance of the orphans
of Trevethlan at the opera. Domestic affairs had temporarily diverted
her suspicions respecting them, and her intentions were in a manner
dormant. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when following a glance
of Mildred's in which she detected some slight emotion, her own eye
fell upon a face, like, yes the very image of Henry Trevethlan: the
very image of what he was that fatal day, when her hasty and haughty
speech drove him from her presence, for once and for ever. With a sort
of fascination she gazed upon the stranger, and saw that he returned
the regard with a curiosity or wonder, that changed while she looked
into hatred and defiance. "Can it be possible?" she asked herself.
Several times during the remainder of the performance, she turned
towards Mrs. Winter's box, and never failed to catch Randolph's eye.
And finally, in leaving the house, she noticed the manner in which
both he and Helen started at the announcement of her name, and again
met that proud resentment which she remembered so well in the lover of
her girlhood.

"Winter!" she mused when she lay down for rest, "Winter! Ay, that is
the name of their lawyer. I ought to know it well. And what do they
here? Why this apparent privacy? Why seek this veil for their
poverty? I must discover. They