n two months they were engaged and at the end
of the half-year, married--with the disastrous consequences just
made known.

So much for the general gossip of the town. Now for the special.

A certain gentleman, whom it is unnecessary to name, had been present
at one critical instant in the lives of these three persons. He was
not a scandalmonger, and if everything had gone on happily, if
Veronica had lived and Cora settled down into matrimony, he would
never have mentioned what he heard and saw one night in the great
drawing-room of a hotel in Atlantic City.

It was at the time when the engagement was first announced between
Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to
Cora had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there
were not lacking those who had openly twitted him for his seeming
inconstancy. This had been over the cups of course, and Jeffrey
had borne it well enough from his so-called friends and intimates.
But when, on a certain evening in the parlor of one of the large
hotels in Atlantic City, a fellow whom nobody knew and nobody liked
accused him of knowing on which side his bread was buttered, and
that certainly it was not on the side of beauty and superior
attainments, Jeffrey got angry. Heedless of who might be within
hearing, he spoke up very plainly in these words: "You are all of a
kind, rank money-worshipers and self-seeker, or you would not be so
ready to see greed in my admiration for Miss Moore. Disagreeable
as I find it to air my sentiments in this public manner, yet since
you provoke me to it, I will say once and for all, that I am deeply
in love with Miss Moore, and that it is for this reason only I am
going to marry her. Were she the penniless girl her sister is, and
Miss Tuttle the proud possessor of the wealth which, in your eyes,
confers such distinction upon Miss Moore, you would still see me at
the latter's feet, and at hers only. Miss Tuttle's charms are not
potent enough to hold the heart which has once been fixed by her
sister's smile."

This was pointed enough, certainly, but when at the conclusion of
his words a tall figure rose from a year corner and Cora Tuttle
passed the amazed group with a bow, I dare warrant that not one of
the men composing it but wished himself a hundred miles away.

Jeffrey himself was chagrined, and made a move to follow the woman
he had so publicly scorned, but the look she cast back at him was
one to rememb