Breaks her heart on the air; and the orange glows
Like golden lamps in an emerald night.'

My Sicilian Siren finally disappeared in a gloomy arched-way
leading into the convent, and I returned to the hotel to dream of
her until the morning sunshine once more bathed Conca D'Oro in
splendor,--when I instituted a search for the name and residence of
my inamorata. Six hours of enthusiastic investigation yielded me
the coveted information, but imagine the profound despair in which
I was plunged when I ascertained from her own smiling lips that
she was a happy wife and the proud mother of two beautiful children.
As she rose to present her swarthy husband, I bowed myself out and
took refuge aboard ship. Here ends the recital of the first and last
bit of romance that ever threw its rosy tinge over the quiet life of
your staid and humble brother--Ulpian Grey, M.D."

"Ah, my dear sailor boy, I am afraid thirty-five years of experience
have rendered you too wary to be caught by such chaff as pretty girls
sprinkle along your path! I should be glad to see your bride enter
this door before I am carried out feet foremost to my final rest by
Enoch's side."

"Do not despair of me, dear Jane, for I am not exactly Methuselah's
rival; and comfort yourself by recollecting that Lessing was forty
years old when he first loved the only woman for whom he ever
entertained an affection--his devoted Eva Koenig."

Dr. Grey bent over his sister's easy-chair, and, taking her thin,
sallow face tenderly in his soft palms, kissed the sunken cheeks--the
wrinkled forehead; and then, laying her head gently back upon its
cushions, entered his buggy and drove to his office.

"Salome, what makes you look so moody? There are as many furrows on
your brow as lines in a spider's web, and your lips are drawn in as if
you had dined on green persimmons. Child, what is the matter?"

Miss Jane lifted her spectacles from her nose, and eyed the orphan,
anxiously.

"I am very sorry to hear that 'Solitude' will be filled once more with
people, and bustle, and din. It is the nearest point where we can
reach the beach, and I have enjoyed many quiet strolls under its
grand, old, solemn trees. If haunted at all, it is by Dryads and
Hamadryads, and I like the babble of their leaves infinitely better
than the strife of human tongues. Miss Jane, if I were only a pagan!"

"I am not very sure that you are not," sighed the invalid.

"Nor I. I have lost my place,--I am