h, deary me, it's such a world! Don't you think, dear, that we have
had enough domestic notoriety for one year?"

"Quite. It would do for several."

"And we will put it off a year?"

"Arrange as you like." And Mavick stretched up his arms, half yawned,
and took up another cigar.

"It will be such a relief to McDonald. She insisted it was too soon."
And Carmen whirled out of her chair, went behind her husband, lifted with
her delicate fingers a lock of grayish hair on his forehead, deposited
the lightest kiss there--"Nobody in the world knows how good you are
except me," and was gone.

And the rich man, who had gained everything he wanted in life except
happiness, lighted his cigar and sought refuge in a tale of modern life,
that was, however, too much like his own history to be consoling.

It must not be supposed from what she said that Mrs. Mavick stood in fear
of her daughter, but it was only natural that for a woman of the world
the daily contact of a pure mind should be at times inconvenient. This
pure mind was an awful touchstone of conduct, and there was a fear that
Evelyn's ignorance of life would prevent her from making the proper
allowances. In her affectionate and trusting nature, which suspected
little evil anywhere, there was no doubt that her father and mother
had her entire confidence and love. But the likelihood was that she
would not be pliant. Under Miss McDonald's influence she had somewhat
abstract notions of what is right and wrong, and she saw no reason
why these should not be applied in all cases. What her mother would
have called policy and reasonable concessions she would have given
different names. For getting on in the world, this state of mind has its
disadvantages, and in the opinion of practical men, like Mavick, it was
necessary to know good and evil. But it was the girl's power of
discernment that bothered her mother, who used often to wonder where the
child came from.

On the other hand, it must not be supposed that the singular training of
Evelyn had absolutely destroyed her inherited tendencies, or made her as
she was growing into womanhood anything but a very real woman, with the
reserves, the weaknesses, the coquetries, the defenses which are the
charm of her sex. Nor was she so ignorant of life as such a guarded
personality might be thought. Her very wide range of reading had
liberalized her mind, and given her a much wider outlook upon the
struggles and passions and failures