r was shown
them.

"It belonged to a lady of the great house of Yorba," they were told.
"She always wore it in her hair, and all men worshipped her. The old
women said it was the dagger that made men love her, that it was
bewitched; there were other women as beautiful. But men died for this
one and no other. One day she lost the dagger, and after that men loved
her no longer. They ran and threw themselves at the feet of the women
that had hated her. She laughed in scorn and said that she wanted no
such love, and that when one returned--he had gone as Ambassador to the
Court of France--he would show the world that his love did not skulk in
the hilt of a dagger. People marvelled at this because she had flouted
her very skirts in his face, had not thrown him so much as the humblest
flower of hope. When they heard he was coming, they held their breath to
see if the magnet had been in the dagger for him too. He arrived in the
night, and in the morning she was found in her bed with the dagger to
the hilt in her heart. They accused him, and he would not say yes or no,
but they could prove nothing and let him go. And when he died the dagger
was found among his possessions. No one could ever say how he got it.
But it has remained in his family until to-day--and now it goes where?"

"To a Yorba!" announced Helena to Magdalena, as she repeated this yarn.
"I made up my mind to that, double quick! It may or may not be true, and
she may or may not have been your ancestress; but it would make a jolly
present all the same, so I ordered papa to buy it if all Madrid bid
against him. Of course he did what I told him, and I want you to wear it
the night of the party."

Magdalena regarded it with great awe. She was by no means without
superstition. Would it bring men to her feet? Not that she wanted them
now, but she would like one evening of intoxicating success, just for
the sake of her old ambitions: they had been little less than entities
at one time; for old friendship's sake she would like to give them their
due. She did wish that she felt a thrill as she touched it,--a vibration
of the attenuated thread which connected one of her soul's particles
with that other soul which, perhaps, had contributed its quota to her
making. But she felt nothing, and replaced the dagger with some chagrin.

She put away the clothes and sat down before the fire to think of
Trennahan. He had gone East at the summons of his mother, who had
invested a l