presents?

"I had quite forgotten them," Beatrice said. "Will you please have everything, except some jewels that I will take care of, locked up in your safe. There are some diamonds which I am going to give into the hands of Mr. Richford at once. I am so sorry to trouble you."

But it was no trouble at all to the polite manager. He begged that Mrs. Richford would let him take everything off her hands. Wearily Beatrice crept down to dinner with a feeling that she would never want to eat anything again. She watched that brilliant throng about her sadly; she sat in the drawing-room after dinner, a thing apart from the rest. A handsome, foreign-looking woman came up to her and sat down on the same settee.

"I hope you will not think that I am intruding," the lady said. "Such a sad, sad time for you, dear. Did you ever hear your father speak of Countess de la Moray?"

Beatrice remembered the name perfectly well. She had often heard her father speak of the Countess in terms of praise. The lady smiled in a sad, retrospective way."We were very good friends," she said. "I recollect you in Paris when you were quite a little thing. It was just before your dear mother died. You used to be terribly fond of chocolates, I remember." 

The lady rambled on in a pleasing way that Beatrice found to be soothing. Gradually and by slow degrees she began to draw out the girl's confidence. Beatrice was a little surprised to find that she was telling the Countess everything. 

"You are quite right, my dear," she said quietly. "The heart first--always the heart first. It is the only way to happiness. Your father was a dear friend of mine, and I am going to be a friend of yours. I have no children; I had a daughter who would have been about your age had she lived." 

The Countess sighed heavily. 

"I would never have allowed a fate like yours to be hers. I go back home in a few days to my chateau near Paris. It is quiet and dull perhaps, but very soothing to the nerves. It would give me great pleasure for you to accompany me." 

Beatrice thanked the kind speaker almost tearfully. It was the first touch of womanly sympathy she had received since her troubles had begun, and it went to her heart. 

"It is very, very good of you," she said. "A friend is what I sorely need at present. When I think of your goodness to a 

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