An Ambitious Man

and brought servants, carriages and horses, and established herself in a very handsome house which she rented for a term of years. Her arrival in this qu

the popular idea of beauty, distinctly amiable, affab

ught after, and her entertainments were

her rent. Several of her servants had gone away in a high state of temper at the titled mistress who had failed to pay them a cent

of the marriage of Baroness Le Fevre to Mr Brown, a wea

was a boy of sixteen, absent in college. The other

all his sixty and nine years before; and, feeling that it is never too late to profit by learning, Mr Brown dis

wn children, and availed her nothing. An important part of the widow's third was the Brown mansion, a large, commodious house built many years before, when the village was but a country town. Everybody supposed the Baroness, a

offered "Rooms to Let," and turned the fam

d the handsome widow found no trouble in filling her rooms with desirable and well-paying patrons. In a spirit of fun, people began to speak of the

r only the wages and keeping of three servants; or rather the wages of two and the keep

that the lodgers' rooms were all in order. These were the services for which she was given a home. But in truth the young woman did much more than this; she acted also as seamstress and milliner for he

he national characteristic of frugality had assumed the shape of avarice in his nature. He was, too, a petty tyran

d, said, when dying, "Take care of your poor father, Berene.

with whom she lived, for eloping with her French teacher-Pierre Dumont. Rheumatism and absinthe turned the French professor into a shopkeeper before Berene was born. The grandparents had died without forgiving thei

bt owed by his convivial comrade, M. Dumont. Berene wept and begged piteously to be spared this horrible sacrifice of her young life, whereupon Pierre Dumont seized his razor and threatened sui

artyrdom as servant and slave to the caprices of her father, until his death. When he was finally well buried under six feet of earth, Bere

her dream to cultivate, and use as a means of support. But how could she ever cultivate it? The thousand dollars in her possession was, she knew, b

t, and had been struck with the peculiar elegance and refinement of her appearance. Her simple lawn or print gowns were made and

d only to be obtained by accident or by advertising and the paying of a large salary. Now the Baroness had been in the habit of thinking that her beauty and amiability were quite equivalent to any favours she received from humanity at large. Ever since she was a plump girl in short dresses, she had learned that smiles and compliments from her lips would pur

ly solitary life with her old father had excluded her from all social relations outside, grasped at this off