ction she returned tenfold, but no sense of
inferiority mingled with this feeling, save that which arose from her
own devoted admiration of her friend.

The homage amid which she passed her life, the unceasing flow of
flatteries around her, were not very likely to undeceive her on this
point. A more respectful devotion could not have waited on a princess of
the royal house. The great Midchekoff gave balls in her honor. The Arab
horses of Treviliani were all placed at her disposal. The various visits
to objects of curiosity or taste were arranged for her pleasure, and
nothing omitted that could tend to stimulate her vanity and heighten her
self-esteem.

The utmost we can say for her all this while is, that if she was carried
away by the excitement of this adulation, yet, in her heart, she was
as little corrupted as was well possible. She could not be other
than enamored of a life so unchanging in its happiness, nor could
she disconnect the enjoyments around her from the possession of great
wealth. She thought of what she had been a few months back: the "same
Kate Dalton," braving the snows of a dark German winter, with threadbare
cloak and peasant "sabots," an object of admiration to none except poor
Hanserl, perhaps! And yet now, unchanged, unaltered, save in what gold
can change, how different was her position! It had been well if her love
of splendor had stopped here. It went further, however, and inspired a
perfect dread of humble fortune.

Over and over again did she hear disparaging remarks bestowed upon the
striving efforts of "respectable poverty," its contrivances derided, its
little straits held up to ridicule. In dress, equipage, or household,
whatever it did was certain to be absurd; and yet all of these people,
so laughed at and scorned, were in the enjoyment of means far above her
own father's!

What a false position was this! How full of deceit must she become to
sustain it! She invoked all her sophistry to assure herself that their
condition was a mere passing state; that at some future perhaps not even
a remote one they should have "their own again;" and that as in family
and descent they were the equals of any, so they were not inferior in
all the just claims to consideration and respect. She tried to think of
her father and Nelly moving in the circles she now lived in; but, even
alone, and in the secrecy of her own thoughts, her cheek became scarlet
with shame, and she actually shuddered at the ver