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^8 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

(>am the spirited response that such treatment would have received from Philip Forsyth, because she knew that Sam was devotedly attached to her. She had doubts of Philip, was flattered by his attention, urged to accept him by her sister, who had no other object but Dolly's social and happy advancement in life.

The truth is, the two pretty young women were as much above the average of their sex in genuine amiability as they were in appearance and manners. They had, in the course of their education and training, annexed uncon- sciously some of the snobbishness of the upper middle class in small social victories ; delighted in being received in a higher grade of society than their neighbors ; found in social success of this kind greater pleasure than should belong to the honest performance of their home duties ; liked of course to be admired rather for their beauty than their intellectual qualities ; were ambitious more or less selfishly for distinction in their husbands that they, the wives, might assume the role of superior persons ; were, in fact, good women with women's weaknesses.

No hostess was more gracious than Mrs. Milbanke, nor more successful in her popular little parties, and Dolly might well be envied for her high spirits, her healthful constitution, her bright eyes, and her unquestionable beauty. Philip Forsyth had been proud to be seen escort- ing her in the tents of Vanity Fair, proud of the attention her happy, pretty face invoked, proud of the envy it ex- cited among women, and the envy he excited as her pros- pective husband. But Sam Swynford, in his more com- mon-place nature, had paid far higher tribute to Dolly's natural fascinations than was possible to Philip Forsyth. S m had no ambition apart from her. In every specula- tion he was inspired with the hope of a future with Dolly. He administered to her little vanities in every way that was possible to his position as her admirer and an inti-