illumined the Atlantic waves
and kindled a bewitching beauty in the face of Salome, who sat on
deck, singing an impassioned strain from _La Favorite_.

Her silvery voice was the miraculous rod that smote his petrified
affections, and a wellspring of tenderness gushed forth, freshening,
softening, and clothing with verdure and bloom his arid, sterile,
stony temperament. Long-buried dreams of his boyhood stirred in their
chilly graves and flitted dimly before him, and a hope that had
slumbered so soundly he had utterly ignored its memory, started up,
eager and starry-eyed, as in the college days of eld,--the precious
hope, underlying all other emotions in a man's heart, that one day he
too would be loved and prayed for by a pure womanly heart, and pure,
sweet, womanly lips.

Fifteen years before, he had vowed "to cherish," not the haughty girl
whose hand he clasped, but the five hundred thousand dollars that
gilded it; and faithfully he had kept his oath to the god of his
idolatry, sacrificing the best half of his life to insatiate
_Kuvera_.

On that cloudless October night, as he watched the shimmer of the moon
on Salome's silky hair, and noted the purely oval outline of her
daintily carved face, and the childish grace of her fine form,--as he
listened to flute-like tones, as irresistible as Parthenope's, his
cold, formal, non-committal mouth stirred, his hand involuntarily
opened and closed firmly, as if grasping some "pearl of great price,"
and his slow, almost stagnant pulses, leaped into feverish activity,
and soon ran riot. Perhaps more regular features, and deeper, richer
carnation bloom had confronted him, but love makes sad havoc of
ideals and abstract standards, and he who defined beauty, "the woman I
love," was wiser than Burke and more analytical than Cousin.

The freshness, the _brusquerie_, the outspoken honesty, that
characterized Salome, strangely fascinated this grave, selfish,
_blase_ aristocrat, who was weary of hollow, polished conventionalities
and stereotyped society phrases; and, as he sat on deck watching her
countenance, he would have counted out his fortune at her feet for
the privilege of claiming her fair, slender hand, and her tremulous,
scarlet lips, instinct with melody that entranced him.

Henceforth life had a different goal, a nobler aim, a tenderer and
more precious hope; and all the energy of his vigorous character was
bent to the fulfilment of the beautiful dream that one day th