A Manifest Destiny by Julia Magruder

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A Manifest Destiny

JULIA MAGRUDER AUTHOR OF "A MAGNIFICENT PLEBEIAN"

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1900

_All rights reserved._

[Illustration: Page 16 "BETTINA THREW BACK HER VEIL"]

ILLUSTRATIONS

"BETTINA THREW BACK HER VEIL" _Frontispiece_

SHE SANK BACK IN HER CHAIR _Facing p._ 34

"'AND WHO IS THIS HANDSOME BOY?'" " 60

"'THE MONEY WAS PARTLY MY OWN'" " 100

"THE VERY SPIRIT OF WIDOWHOOD" " 168

"'TRULY, MY CHILD, IT IS A WRETCHED STORY'" " 190

A MANIFEST DESTINY

CHAPTER I

Bettina Mowbray, walking the deck of the ocean steamer bound for England, was aware that she was observed with interest by a great many pairs of eyes. Certainly the possessors of these eyes were not more interested in her than she was in the interpretation of their glances. It was, indeed, of the first importance to her to know that she was being especially noticed by the men and women of the world, who in large part made up the passenger list, since her beauty was her one endowment for the position in the great world which all her life she had intended and expected to occupy. She was anxious, therefore, to know whether the personal appearance which had been rated so high in the obscure places hitherto known to her would or would not hold its own when she got out into life, as it were.

Therefore, as Miss Mowbray paced the deck, at the side of the erect elderly woman who had been her nurse and was now her maid, she was vigilantly regardful of the looks which were turned upon her, and at times, by straining her ears, she could even catch a word or two of comment. Both looks and words were gratifying in the extreme. They not only confirmed the previous verdict passed upon her beauty, but they gave evidence to her keen intuition that, judged by a higher standard, she had won a higher tribute.

Yet, ardent as this admiration was on the one side, and grateful as it was on the other, there the matter stopped. To those who would have approached her more closely Bettina set up a tacit barrier which no one had been able to cross, and, after several days at sea, she was still limited to the society of her maid. Those who had spoken to her once had been so politely repelled that they had not spoken again, and many of those who had felt inclined to speak had, on coming nearer to her, refrained instinctively.

There was something, apart from her beauty, which attracted the eye and the imagination in this tall girl in her deep mourning. This, perhaps, was the twofold aspect which her different moods and expressions gave to her. At one time she looked so profoundly sad, dejected, almost despairing, that it was easy to connect her mourning dress with the loss of what had been dearest to her. At another time there was a buoyancy, animation, vividness, in her look which made her black clothes seem incongruous in any other sense than that in which a dark setting is sometimes used to throw into relief the brilliancy of a jewel.

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