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COQUETTE'S PRESENTIMENTS.
It was impossible that this condition of affairs could last. A far less observant man than Earlshope was bound to perceive the singular change which had fallen over Coquette's manner. Hitherto she had appeared to him to be the very personification of joyousness -- to live a graceful, happy, almost unthinking life, in an atmosphere of tender emotions and kindly sentiments, which were as the sunshine and the sea-breezes to her. Why should this young creature, with the calm and beautiful face, whose dark eyes showed a perfect serenity and placidity of soul, be visited with the rougher passions, the harsher experiences, which befall less fortunate people? That was not her _rôle_. It was her business to be happy -- to be waited upon -- to be pleased. She had but to sit on deck, in her French costume of dark-green tartan and black lace, with a book lying open but unread on her knee, with her hand inside Lady Drum's arm, with the clear light of the sea and the clouds shining in her face and in the darkness of her eyes, and leave troubles and cares and vexations to those born under a less fortunate star.