o
because your mother, if she had been idle, would have wanted to scrub
the floors--just as my father's business capacity came out in me just
now, and I fenced with and sampled a very noble gentleman instead of
being simple with him. Let us get above our instincts--and be the real
aristocrats we appear to the world!"

But the Princess had to have some sal volatile.

That night after dinner waywardness was upon Sabine. She would read the
_New York Herald_, which she had absolutely not glanced at since their
arrival at Carlsbad, so absorbed and entranced had she been in her walks
in the green woods, and so little interested was she ever in the doings
of the world.

She glanced at the Trouville news, and the Homburg news with wandering
mind, and then her eye fell upon the polo at Ostende, and there she read
that the English team had been giving a delightful dance at the Casino,
where Mr. Michael Arranstoun had sumptuously entertained a party of his
friends--amongst them Miss Daisy Van der Horn. The paragraph was worded
with that masterly simplicity which distinguishes intelligent, modern
journalism; and left the reader's mind confused as to words, but clear
as to suggestion. Sabine Howard knew Miss Daisy Van der Horn. As she
read, the bright, soft color left her cheeks, and then returned with a
brilliant flush.

It was the first time for five years she had ever read the name of
Arranstoun in any paper. She held the sheet firmly, and perused all the
other information of the day--but when she put it down, and joined in
the general conversation, it could have been remarked that her eyes
were glittering like fixed stars.

And when, for a moment, they all went out on the balcony to breathe in
the warm, soft night, she whispered to Henry Fordyce:

"I have been thinking--I will, at all events, begin to take steps to be
free."

But to his rapturous, "My darling!" she replied, with lowered lids:

"It will take some time--and you may not like waiting--And when I am
free--I do not know--only--I am tired, and I want someone to help me to
forget and begin again. Good-night."

Then, after she got to her room, she opened the window wide, and looked
out upon the quiet firs. But nothing stilled the unrest in her heart.

CHAPTER VIII

Heronac was basking in the sun of an August morning, like some huge sea
monster which had clambered upon the wet rocks.

The sea was intensely blue without a ripple upon it, and only the