ston has hardly heard of your existence, and that existence, child, you must attest before Huddleston. A good many friends or acquaintances, or patients, or what not of mine will be there, and I want them to see you.'

It was arranged that we should call for Miss Lepell on our way. Frank had bought me a ball dress of pink silk and lace flounces; and vastly proud did he seem of me when I sailed down to meet him in the drawing-room. I knew he was anxious for me to look my best, and I think my best had been achieved.

'To whose ideal have you been dressing?' he asked, surveying me with eyes aglow with admiration.

To yours, darling.'

'No, no. To an ideal more poetical than ever I could body forth. You have had Moore's description of Nourmahal in your mind. You have been painting her picture on the looking-glass.'

By my own representation? do not make me conceited. In a few years' time,' touching

my hair, this gold will be gray, these shoulders bony, this arm shrunk, like poor Pantaloon's in the "Seven Ages."

'A fiddle for a few years' time! What have you to do with age? Doesn't Keats tell us that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and that its loveliness increases? Take comfort; you are a thing of beauty, and my joy (but no one else's) you shall be for ever. That sunbeam on your shoulder actually tints the perfumed snow with yellow.'

"What a description of a curl! Oh, Frank, your mother told you once that it would be a kindness to think you mad, and you'll make me agree with her if you go on like this.'

Fiddlesticks! the imagery you suggest is exhaustless. Don't look so demure; that saucy sparkle in your eyes destroys the impersonation. Come, give me your arm, the brougham is at the door.'

We passed out without saying good-night to Lady Monck, who was supposed to be in the dining-room, and drove off. Before long we

halted before a high brick house; the bell was rung, and the door opened. Frank got out, and stood talking to me through the carriage. window until Miss Lepell should appear. Through the open door I caught sight of a large hall, lighted by an elaborate lamp, a broad stone staircase richly carpeted, and other signs and symbols typifying an interior very superior to that indicated by the gaunt brick front.

Soon down the staircase swam Miss Lepell; she passed beneath the lamp, a resplendent shape of white satin and gleaming diamonds. Frank held the carriage door open, she entered gracefully, he followed, and off we started again. She spoke a few soft words to me; modest regrets that we had missed seeing each other until then; hopes that the rooms would not be too full, as she hated dancing in a crowd; then the jarring of the windows rendering hearing difficult, relapsed into silence.

A creamy, voluptuous, showy beauty she looked, with her swelling bust, on which re

posed a locket set with diamonds; her stately, stainless neck glistening to the lustre of diamond earrings; her full and shapely arms daintily decorated with light and brilliant bracelets; and her hair of ebon hue on which reposed a tiara of dead gold whose centre-piece was a large moon-like diamond. But more brightly than her gems flashed her eyes, as she turned them from me to Frank. Pity that her face was deformed by the insupportable sneer of the upper lip. Frank hardly noticed her. On me his gaze seemed riveted. Uncomfortably

so, indeed; I could have wished that he had occasionally looked at her.

The brougham presently halted. I looked out. We fronted an open door, let into a long dead wall that glimmered away on either side of us far into the darkness. The door was opened; a long vista of trees stretched to the mansion, against whose trunks was fastened a canvass covering, protecting the whole length of walk. I heard the distant metallic strains of music; lights flashed upon the pathway; the

brougham door was opened, and we passed in.

They were hard at work dancing when we entered the large double drawing-room, brilliantly lighted by a profuse crystal chandelier which found an infinity of perspective mirrorings in the tall glasses that covered the walls. I was introduced to Mrs. Fairfax, a fluent, unpretending woman, and to Mr. Fairfax, a stout, benevolent-looking elderly gentleman, in a white waistcoat and a brown wig. Seating ourselves with difficulty, for the crimson benches were well stocked with gentlemen who kept putting on their gloves, and ladies who studied their ball-room programmes with singular intentness, we watched the dancers. They were dancing the Lancers, and more sets had been mobbed together than there was room for. There was consequently much confusion and much excitement, much rippling of women's laughter, and floundering of men's arms. Wrong hands were being perpetually taken, and perhaps squeezed, and men chasséed