at could minister to her comfort.
She was a natural gourmand, hungry for sweets and fruits all day long:
she coveted ornaments, and found Helen's drawer of trinkets almost too
small for her; she liked velvets and furs, silks and plushes, and wore
the child's clothes until Mr. Raymond sent his housekeeper to Boston
to purchase her a complete outfit of her own. But all these faults
I could have pardoned in Georgy, and ascribed them to her faulty
education and false influences at home, had she been grateful to
little Helen.

"She hates Helen for being luckier than herself," Mr. Raymond
affirmed: "she would do her a mischief if she could."

I could not believe that, yet I could see that she loved to torture
the child, whose acute sensibilities made her suffer from the
slightest coldness or suspicion.

"If you really loved me, Helen," Georgy would say, "you would do this
for me;" and sometimes the task would be to slight or openly disobey
Mr. Raymond, to outrage me or to make one of the dumb, loving pets
which filled the place suffer. And if at sight of the child's tears I
remonstrated, I was punished as it was easy enough for Georgy Lenox to
punish me.

She would melt Helen too by drawing a picture of her own poverty and
state of dreary unhappiness beside the good fortune of the heiress,
until the little girl would search through the house to find another
present for her, which she besought her beautiful goddess almost on
her knees to accept. All these traits, which showed that Georgina was
far from perfect, caused me a misery proportionate to my longing to
have her all that was lovely and excellent. It is indeed unfair to
write of faults which are so easy to portray, and to say nothing of
the beauty of feature and charm of manner, which might have been
enough to persuade any one who looked into her face that she was one
of God's own angels. What does beauty mean if it be not the blossoming
of inner perfection into outward loveliness? And Georgina Lenox was
beautiful to every eye. Let every one who reads my story know and feel
that she had the beauty which can stir the coldest blood--the eyes
whose look of entreaty could melt the most implacable resolution--the
smile which could lure, the voice which could make every man follow.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Floyd had again entered upon active life in Washington, and his
duties were so absorbing that it was almost impossible for him to find
any opportunity of joining me at