eparation would have made them shudder.

The door stood open, and they emerged through it on to the wooden steps.
At first their eyes, dazzled by the noisy glare of the house, could
distinguish nothing in the silent darkness without. But, by-and-by, a
singular gentle radiance began to diffuse itself through the soft night
air, as if a new moon had all at once arisen. They looked first at each
other, and then upward at the sky. Cornelia pressed her companion's arm,
and caught her breath.

From the north had uprisen a column of light, of about the apparent
breadth of the Milky Way, but far more brilliant, and defined clearly at
the edges. Higher and higher it rose, until it reached the zenith.
Pausing a moment there, it then began to slide and lengthen down the
southern slope of the sky, lower and lower, till its extreme limit
seemed to mingle with the haze on the horizon. Having thus completed its
stupendous sweep, it remained, brightening and paling by turns, for
several minutes. Finally, it slowly and imperceptibly faded away,
vanishing first at the loftiest point of all, and lingering downward on
either side, till all was gone.

"What a glorious arch!" exclaimed Cornelia.

"It was put there for us, was it not?" rejoined Bressant.

Some of the other guests had come out in time to see the latter part of
this spectacle, as it trembled athwart the heavens. They "Oh'd" and
"Ah'd" in vast astonishment and admiration; and one of them humorously
asserted that it had been engaged, at a huge expense, to celebrate the
anniversary of American Independence. So the celestial arch vanished in
the echo of a horse-laugh. But Bressant and Cornelia, as they stood
silently arm-in-arm, felt as if it were rather the presage of an
emancipation of their own selves. From, or to what, they did not ask;
nor did the old superstition, that such signs foretell ruin and
disaster, recur to their minds until long afterward.

Dancing was now recommenced, but, by an unuttered agreement, the two
refrained from participating again. The enjoyment had been too entire to
risk a repetition. They sat down in one of the small boudoirs, which,
through a demoralized corridor, commanded a view of the extremity of one
of the dancing-rooms.

From this vantage-ground they could see the distinctive features of the
assembly pass before their eyes. Girls who danced well striving to look
graceful in the arms of men who danced ill, or floundering women
bringing d