e key-note of them all I also remembered,
but some instinct forbade me to utter it aloud. Once I thought, "Shall
I take a pencil and write it down lest I forget it?" and the same
instinct said "No." Amy's voluble chatter ran on like the sound of a
rippling brook all the time I thus meditated over the occurrences of
the day.

"Say, child!" she exclaimed; "will you go to the dance?"

"Certainly I will, with pleasure," I answered, and indeed I felt as if
I should thoroughly enjoy it.

"Brava! It will be real fun. There are no end of foreign titles coming,
I believe. The Colonel's a bit grumpy about it,--he always is when he
has to wear his dress suit. He just hates it. That man hasn't a
particle of vanity. He looks handsomer in his evening clothes than in
anything else, and yet he doesn't see it. But tell me," and her pretty
face became serious with a true feminine anxiety, "whatever will you
wear? You've brought no ball fixings, have you?"

I finished twisting up the last coil of my hair, and turned and kissed
her affectionately. She was the most sweet-tempered and generous of
women, and she would have placed any one of her elaborate costumes at
my disposal had I expressed the least desire in that direction. I
answered:

"No, dear; I certainly have no regular ball 'fixings,' for I never
expected to dance here, or anywhere for that matter. I did not bring
the big trunks full of Parisian toilettes that you indulge in, you
spoilt bride! Still I have something that may do. In fact it will have
to do."

"What is it? Have I seen it? Do show!" and her curiosity was
unappeasable.

The discreet Alphonse tapped at the door again just at this moment.

"Entrez!" I answered; and our tea, prepared with the tempting nicety
peculiar to the Hotel de L----, appeared. Alphonse set the tray down
with his usual artistic nourish, and produced a small note from his
vest-pocket.

"For mademoiselle," he said with a bow; and as he handed it to me, his
eyes opened wide in surprise. He, too, perceived the change in my
appearance. But he was dignity itself, and instantly suppressed his
astonishment into the polite impassiveness of a truly accomplished
waiter, and gliding from the room on the points of his toes, as was his
usual custom, he disappeared. The note was from Cellini, and ran as
follows:

"If mademoiselle will be so good as to refrain from choosing any
flowers for her toilette this evening, she will confer a favour on her
h