nothing to be desired, and many are the complimentary speeches uttered
from time to time by the audience. Arthur Dynecourt too had not
overpraised his own powers. It is palpable to every one that he has
often trod the boards, and the pathos he throws into his performance
astonishes the audience. Is it only acting in the final scene when he
makes love to Miss Hardcastle, or is there some real sentiment in it?

This question arises in many breasts. They note how his color changes as
he takes her hand, how his voice trembles; they notice too how she grows
cold, in spite of her desire to carry out her part to the end, as he
grows warmer, and how instinctively she shrinks from his touch. Then it
is all over, and the curtain falls amidst loud applause. Florence comes
before the curtain in response to frequent calls, gracefully, half
reluctantly, with a soft warm blush upon her cheeks and a light in her
eyes that renders her remarkable loveliness only more apparent. Sir
Adrian, watching her with a heart faint and cold with grief and
disappointment, acknowledges sadly to himself that never has he seen her
look so beautiful. She advances and bows to the audience, and only loses
her self-possession a very little when a bouquet directed at her feet by
an enthusiastic young man alights upon her shoulder instead.

Arthur Dynecourt, who has accompanied her to the footlights, and who
joins in her triumph, picks up the bouquet and presents it to her.

As he does so the audience again become aware that she receives it from
him in a spirit that suggests detestation of the one that hands it, and
that her smile withers as she does so, and her great eyes lose their
happy light of a moment before.

Sir Adrian sees all this too, but persuades himself that she is now
acting another part--the part shown him by Mrs. Talbot. His eyes are
blinded by jealousy; he can not see the purity and truth reflected in
hers; he misconstrues the pained expression that of late has saddened
her face.

For the last few days, ever since her momentous interview with Arthur
Dynecourt in the gallery, she has been timid and reserved with Sir
Adrian, and has endeavored to avoid his society. She is oppressed with
the thought that he has read her secret love for him, and seeks, by an
assumed coldness of demeanor and a studied avoidance of him, to induce
him to believe himself mistaken.

But Sir Adrian is only rendered more miserable by this avoidance, in the
thou