CHAPTER X.MARY.
I Mary Cole had been, all her life, that thing beloved of the sentimental novelist, a misunderstood child.

She was the only misunderstood member of the Cole family, and she was misunderstood, as is very often the case, in a large measure because she was so plain.

Had she been good-looking as Helen, or independent as Jeremy, she would have either attracted the world in general, or have been indifferent as to whether she attracted it or not.

As it was, she longed to attract everyone, and, in truth, attracted nobody.

She might have found consolation in books or her own highly-coloured imaginations had it not been for the burning passions which she formed, at a very early age, for living people.