the stimulant,
his master drank it off, and then threw himself, dressed as he was, on
the bed.

Upper Tendom was ringing with the approaching nuptials of Miss Harrison
and Mr. Linmere. The bride was so beautiful and wealthy, and so
insensible to her good fortune in securing the most eligible man in her
set. Half the ladies in the city were in love with Mr. Linmere. He was
so _distingue_, carried himself so loftily, and yet was so gallantly
condescending, and so inimitably fascinating. He knew Europe like a book,
sang like a professor, and knew just how to hand a lady her fan, adjust
her shawl, and take her from a carriage. Accomplishments which make men
popular, always.

Early in July Mr. Trevlyn and Margie, accompanied by a gay party, went
down to Cape May. Mr. Trevlyn had long ago forsworn everything of the
kind; but since Margie Harrison had come to reside with him he had given
up his hermit habits, and been quite like other nice gouty old gentleman.

The party went down on Thursday--Mr. Paul Linmere followed on Saturday.
Margie, had hoped he would not come; in his absence she could have
enjoyed the sojourn, but his presence destroyed for her all the charms
of sea and sky. She grew frightened, sometimes, when she thought how
intensely she hated him. And in October she was to become his wife.

Some way, Margie felt strangely at ease on the subject. She knew that the
arrangements were all made, that her wedding _trousseau_ was being gotten
up by a fashionable _modiste_, that Delmonico had received orders for the
feast, and that the oranges were budded, which, when burst into flowers,
were to adorn her forehead on her bridal day. She despised Linmere with
her whole soul, she dreaded him inexpressibly, yet she scarcely gave her
approaching marriage with him a single thought. She wondered that she did
not; when she thought of it all, she was shocked to find herself so
impassive.

Her party had been a week at Cape May, when Archer Trevlyn came down,
with the wife of his employer, Mr. Belgrade. The lady was in delicate
health, and had been advised to try sea air and surf-bathing. Mr.
Belgrade's business would not allow of his absence at just that time,
and he had shown his confidence in his head clerk by selecting him as
his wife's escort.

Introduced into society by so well established an aristocrat as Mrs.
Belgrade, Arch might at once have taken a prominent place among the
fashionables; for his singularly handsome