uffering. Jack's
voice seemed toned to these sympathetic vibrations, and the grand old
words rolled out simply, with none of the vicious taste of the more
modern fashionable school. So engrossed were they, that they did not
hear the carriage stop; but Sylvie caught her aunt's voice.

They had reached the end of a verse. "Let me see what auntie wants,"
said Sylvie, running into the next room; and then it was, "Oh, Irene!
oh, Sylvie!"

"Singing to yourself in the twilight!" laughed Irene. "How romantic! I'm
going to interrupt you now, and put you in better business. I am just
loaded down with the excellent fripperies of this world, and unable to
make a choice. And the grand occasion is Mrs. Avery Langton's
garden-party. Now, be good-natured, and help me decide."

Uttering this in a rapid breath, she had walked through the sitting-room
to the parlor, and tumbled her parcel down on the great antique sofa,
whose edges everywhere were studded with brass nails. And there stood
Jack, thinking, if he had been quicker, he could have stepped out of the
window into Miss Sylvie's pretty flower-bed, now purple with odorous
heliotrope. But, as he had not, there was nothing to do but to stand his
ground manfully.

He had often seen Irene Lawrence in the carriage and on horseback; but
as she stepped into the room now, and stood there rather surprised, she
might have been a daughter of Juno. Tall, slender, arrowy straight, but
lithe and faultlessly rounded, her fleecy white shawl like a gossamer
web falling off her shoulders, her haughty carriage, her wealth of
purple-black hair coiled about her shapely head, a hundred times
handsomer than any artifice of dressing, her brilliant complexion, her
large eyes with their long sweeping lashes that veiled their depth, but
seemed to add a certain imperiousness, her coral-red lips that shaped
differently with every breath, her straight nose, with the nostrils thin
as a bit of shell, and the softly rounded chin, made her a picture that
Jack Darcy never forgot.

"Oh!" in a tone of surprise, "I thought you were alone: pardon me."

Sylvie was bringing in another lamp, and placed it on the great clawfoot
centre-table. Then it occurred to her that Irene might not know Jack.
She should recognize him here socially, anyhow.

"My friend Miss Lawrence," she said with a world of dignity, "Mr.
Darcy."

Jack bowed, in no wise abashed by this proud and handsome Miss Lawrence,
though as a child she had