when he
married her, but that would have savored of treachery to her, and I
refrained.

Often in the long calm days of the home-voyage, and oftener still in the
night-watches, I pondered in my heart the items of Mrs. Rayne's history,
and pieced them together like bits of mosaic--the gray eyes and the gray
dress, the identity of name, the indefinite terrors of her sea-voyage,
the little touch concerning Lancelot and Guinevere, her emotion when I
mentioned the Sapphire. If circumstantial evidence can be trusted, I
feel certain that Pedro's ghost appeared to me in the flesh.

ELLA WILLIAMS THOMPSON.

REMINISCENCES OF FLORENCE.

I had six months more to stay on the Continent, and I began for the
first time to be discontented in Paris. There was no soul in that great
city whom I had ever seen before, but this alone would hot have been
sufficient to make me long for a change, except for an accident which
unluckily surrounded me with my own countrymen. These I did not go
abroad to see; and having lived almost entirely in the society of the
French for over two years, it was with dismay that I saw my sanctum
invaded daily by twos and threes of the aimless American nonentities who
presume that their presence must be agreeable to any of their
countrymen, and especially to any countrywoman, after a chance
introduction on the boulevard or an hour spent together in a cafe.

"Seeing these things," I determined to leave Paris, and the third day
after found me traveling through picturesque Savoy toward Mont Cenis.
All the afternoon the rugged hills had been growing higher and whiter
with snow, and now, just before sunset, we reached the railway terminus,
St. Michel, and were under the shadow of the Alps themselves.

The previous night in the cars I had found myself the only woman among
some half dozen French military officers, who paid me the most polite
attention. They were charmed that I made no objection to their
cigarettes, talked with me on various topics, criticised McClellan as a
general, and were enthusiastic on the subject of our country generally.
About midnight they prepared a grand repast from their traveling-bags,
to which they gave me a cordial invitation. I begged to contribute my
_mesquin_ supply of grapes and brioches, and the supper was a
considerable event. Their canteens were filled with red wines, and one
cup served the whole company. They drank my health and that of the
President of the United State