"Let her be educated with Francia, then, and precisely in the same manner. Regard her as my adopted daughter, and make no difference between them in any way. I will never commit the cruelty of rearing a child beneath my roof to a condition of dependence and sycophancy. The finest nature must become debased or crushed by such a life. Educate her in every respect as if she were Francia's sister, and let her story be kept a secret from her as long as possible. Look to this, if you please."
"Yes, sir."
"She must be named, also."
"She is named already, sir. At least the word Neria is pricked into her shoulder with Indian ink, and I take it to be her name," said Mrs. Rhee, somewhat contemptuously.
"Neria? The mermaids must have named her before they left her on the shore. Well, it is a pretty name. Let it belong to her. Was there nothing about the mother to tell who she was or where she came from?"
"Nothing, sir. She looked like a lady, although her clothes were poor and worn. She had a wedding ring, and wore a curious bracelet, but neither of them were marked, nor were any of her clothes. James has inquired at Carrick, but no one saw her pass through, except an old man, who remembers that some one asked if Mr. Vaughn lived near here, and he directed her to this house; but it stormed so that he did not notice much how she looked, or ask any questions as to where she came from, or anything."
"Probably she wanted help, and had been referred to me," said Vaughn, quietly settling in his own mind a question that should not have been so readily answered. "Where is the bracelet of which you speak?"
"Here, sir. I brought it to give into your own charge, as it appears very valuable."
She laid it in his hand as she spoke. A golden serpent, his scales delicately wrought in the old Venetian style, and so subtly jointed as to writhe at every motion with all the graceful convolutions of his kind. The flattened head was set with an emerald crest and diamond eyes, while between the distended jaws flickered a flame-like tongue carved from a single ruby.
Vaughn, who had a luxurious fancy for rare gems, looked with delight at the exquisite toy coiled upon his hand, vibrating with every throb of its pulses, and flashing back the sunlight from its diamond eyes with a cold glitter half diabolical in its life-likeness.
"It must be an heir-loom of some old family," said he. "Our paltry goldsmiths do not conceive such exquisite fancies. And the workmanship is the Venetian style of the last century—genuine, too; it is no modern imitation. Is there no mark upon it of any kind?"
"No, I believe not," replied the housekeeper, wearily, while through her mind glanced the question,
"Can he really care more for this toy than for the anguish devouring my heart!"
"Yet, but there is. See here." And unheeding the swimming eyes that sought his own, Vaughn showed where, upon the serpent's throat, one scale was marked in tiny characters with the initials "F. V., 1650." Upon the scale above was traced the outline of a crest, but so faintly that Vaughn failed to make it out by the minutest scrutiny.
"'F. V.' Why, those are my little Francia's initials," said he, musingly.
