16 EXPENSIVE PROPERTY. 



well-feigned uneasiness of mind, and causing the 

 brightness of her truly brilliant eyes to be dimmed by 

 a standing tear, she breathed her fears lest other 

 attractions has caused his unusual absence. 



Fred., though a man of naturally good sense, and 

 of very superior cultivated talents, was like many, 

 nay, most men, no match for the artifices of a 

 really clever and designing woman, of whom he was 

 passionately fond. Kate saw the advantage her 

 pretended doubts of his fidelity had given her, and 

 was too good a tactician not to avail herself of it at 



once. 



Extravagant as she had always been, her last half- 

 year's expenditure had far exceeded any sum she had 

 ever ventured to ask for ; nor as yet had her own 

 boundless ideas of prodigality, or Manderville's often 

 tried liberality, inspired her with courage enough to 

 ask a sum from her lover that even she blushed to 

 name. She now, however, saw the proper moment 

 to do so had arrived, and with well-dissembled con- 

 trition for her thoughtlessness, and with, for the 

 first time, something like real fear as to its effects on 

 the feelings of Fred, towards her, she placed in his 

 hand bills for dress and jewellery to the amount of 

 thirteen hundred pounds. 



Fred. Manderville was too much a man of the world 

 and too hackneyed in its Avays to be easily surprised 

 at any tlmig ; but when, added to this, the recollection 

 of his father's visit flashed on his mind, he fairly 

 leaped from his chair. Kate now felt really alarmed 

 at the wildness of his look ; something perhaps like a 

 feeling of remorse shot across her heart ; she felt that 

 on the present ' moment might hang the crisis of her 

 future fate ; she knew she had no excuses to offer ; 



