This lady took from a heap by her side a slip containing the usual form of marriage contract, and filled in the blanks.

At a sign from Eveena, I had by this time approached close enough to hear the language of half-envious, half-supercilious wonder in which the schoolmistress congratulated her pupil on her signal conquest, and the terms she had obtained, as well as the maiden's unaffected acknowledgment of her own surprise and conscious unworthiness.

I could _feel_, despite the concealment of her form and face, Eveena's silent expression of pained disgust with the one, and earnest womanly sympathy with the other.

The document was executed in the usual triplicate.
The girl retired for a few minutes, and reappeared in a cloak and veil like those of her new companions, but of comparatively cheap materials.

As we passed the threshold, Eveena gently and tacitly but decisively assigned to her _protegee_ her own place beside me, and put her right hand in my left.