passers-by. But this barouche that drove up?--there
was something familiar about it--wasn't it the carriage he had sent
down to Sloane Street?--then the next moment he was saying to himself,

"My goodness gracious! can that be Nina?"

And Nina it assuredly was; but not the Nina of the black dress and
crimson straw hat with which he had grown familiar. Oh, no; this young
lady who stepped down from the carriage, who waited a second for her
friend, and then crossed the pavement, was a kind of vision of light
summer coolness and prettiness; even his uninstructed intelligence told
him how charmingly she was dressed; though he had but a glimpse of the
tight-fitting gown of cream-white, with its silver girdle, the white
straw hat looped up on one side and adorned on the other with large
yellow roses, the pale-yellow gloves with silver bangles at the wrists,
the snow-white sunshade, with its yellow satin ribbons attached. The
vision of a moment--then it was gone; but only to reappear here at the
open door. And who could think of her costume at all when Nina herself
came forward, with the pretty, pale, foreign face so pleasantly smiling,
the liquid black eyes softly bespeaking kindness, the half-parted lips
showing a glimmer of milk-white teeth.

"Good-morning, Leo!"

"Good-morning, Nina! They say that ladies are never punctual; but here
you are to the moment!"

"Then you have to thank Mrs. Grey--and your own goodness in sending the
carriage for us. Ah, the delightful flowers!" said she, glancing at the
table, and her nostrils seemed to dilate a little, as if she would
welcome all their odors at once. "But the window, Leo--you will have the
window open? London, it is perfectly beautiful this morning!--the air is
sweet as of the country--oh, it is the gayest city in the world!"

"I never saw London fuller, anyway," said he, as he rang the bell, and
told the waiter to have luncheon produced forthwith.

Nina, seated at table in that cool summer costume, merely toyed with the
things put before her (except when they came to the strawberries); she
was chattering away, with her little dramatic gestures, about every
conceivable subject within her recent experience, until, as she happened
to say something about Naples, Lionel cruelly interrupted her by asking
her if she had heard lately from her sweetheart.

"Who?" she said, with a stare; and also the little widow in black looked
up from her plate and seemed to think it a strange