ed not only to look, but to see, observed that
Miss Wayne was constantly doing something. It was dance, drive, bowl,
ride, walk incessantly. From the earliest hour to the latest she was in
the midst of people and excitement. She gave herself scarcely time to
sleep.

The painter was introduced to her, and became one of her habitual
attendants. Every morning after breakfast Hope Wayne held a kind of court
upon the piazza. All the young men surrounded her and worshipped.

Arthur Merlin was intelligent and ingenuous. His imagination gave a kind
of airy grace to his conversation and manner. Passionately interested in
his art, he deserted its pursuit a little only when the observation of
life around him seemed to him a study as interesting. He and Miss Wayne
were sometimes alone together; but although she was conscious of a
peculiar sympathy with his tastes and character, she avoided him more
than any of the other young men. Mrs. Dagon said it was a pity Miss Wayne
was so cold and haughty to the poor painter. She thought that people
might be taught their places without cruelty.

Arthur Merlin constantly said to himself in a friendly way that if he had
been less in love with his art, or had not perceived that Miss Wayne had
a continual reserved thought, he might have fallen in love with her. As
it was, he liked her so much that he cared for the society of no other
lady. He read Byron with her sometimes when they went in little parties
to the lake, and somehow he and Hope found themselves alone under the
trees in a secluded spot, and the book open in his hand.

He also read to her one day a poem upon a cloud, so beautiful that Hope
Wayne's cheek flushed, and she asked, eagerly,

"Whose is that?"

"It is one of Shelley's, a friend of Byron's."

"But how different!"

"Yes, they were different men. Listen to this."

And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.

"How joyous it is!" said Hope; "but I feel the sadness."

"Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems," replied Arthur,
looking at her closely.

She colored a little--said that it was warm--and rose to go.

The cold black eyes of Miss Fanny Newt suddenly glittered upon them.

"Will you go home with us, Miss Wayne?"

"Thank you, I am just coming;" and Hope passed into the wood.

When Arthur Merlin was left alone he quietly lighted a cigar, opened his
port-folio and spread it before him, then sharpened a pencil and began to
sketch. But while he l