You see I am disappointed, I
expected the American minister on business, and he sends this Paris
beau to make his apologies; that is all."

As the old lady disappeared, Mrs. Orme shuddered, and muttered with
clenched teeth:

"All have a Gethsemane sooner or later, and mine has overtaken me
before I am quite ready. God grant me some strengthening angel!"

She sank back into the arm chair, and drew the oval gilt table before
her as a barrier, while some inexplicable, intuitive impulse prompted
her to draw from her bosom a locket containing Regina's miniature.
Touching a spring, she looked at the childish features so singularly
like those she had seen the previous evening, and when Mrs. Waul
returned and seated herself at the end of the room, the spring
snapped, the locket lay in one hand, the minister's card in the
other.

Mrs. Orme heard the sound on the stairs and along the hall--the
well-remembered step. Amid the tramp of a hundred she could have
singled it out, so often in bygone years had she crouched under the
lilacs that overhung the gate, listening for its rapid approach,
waiting to throw herself into the arms that would clasp her so
fondly; to-day that unaltered step smote her ears like an echo from
the tomb, and for an instant her heart stood still, and she shut her
eyes; but the door swung back, and Mr. Laurance stood upon the
threshold. As he advanced, she rose, and when he stood before her
with outstretched hand, she ignored it, merely rested her palm on the
table between them; and glancing at the card in her fingers said:

"Mr. Laurance, I believe, introduced by the American minister. A
countryman of mine, he writes. As such I am pleased to see you, sir,
for when abroad the mere name of American is an _open sesame_ to
American sympathy and hospitality. Pray be seated, Mr. Laurance.
Pardon me, not that stiff-backed ancient contrivance of torture,
which must have been invented by Eymeric. You will find that green
velvet Voltaire, like its namesake, far more easy, affording ample
latitude."

The sweet voice rung its silver chimes as clearly as when she trod
the stage, and no shadow of the past cast its dusky wing over her
proud, pale face, while she gracefully waved him to a seat, and
resumed her own.

"If Madame Orme, so recently from home, yields readily to the
talismanic spell of 'American' she can perhaps imagine the
fascination it exerts over one who for many years has roamed far
from his roof-t