ed to inspire her now, for she filled another
glass of wine and motioned me to drink it. I had merely sipped from mine
when papa proposed his toast, and Franklin had borne it away with the
others in making ready for the dessert.

"Don't let that man read you," she said, in a low, eager voice, not lost
on me. I drank the wine, and met his glance steadily this time, and gave
him look for look. My secret had nerved me well.

That evening Claude Bainrothe came.

"When do you enter the sacred bands of matrimony with Miss Stanbury, Mr.
Bainrothe?" asked Evelyn, in her usual, cool, provoking way, sipping a
glass of iced lemonade as she spoke, which Claude had brought her from
the refreshment-slab and humbly offered.

"And when do you assume your office in Georgia?" I asked in the next
breath, encouraged by her example, and perhaps, alas! eager to know the
truth, scarcely lifting my eyes to his as I spoke.

He glanced from one to the other with a bewildered air, quite foreign
from his usual self-possession.

"I protest, ladies, I do not understand your allusions," he replied at
last, with such an air of truth that, taking pity on him, we explained
the matter laughingly.

"My poor father is falling into that sear and yellow leaf, his dotage,"
he said, "that is evident; what could possess him to maunder so? I
really believe he is in love with Miss Stanbury himself, and is
wire-working merely to gain my consent. As to going to Georgia, I would
as soon bury myself up to my neck in the sea-sand and bear the vertical
sun for twenty sequent noons, as to dream of such a step. The old
gentleman is a lunatic, and should be cared for without delay. I will
get Dr. Parrish to see after him to-morrow."

"But I _did_ hear you say you were going to Copenhagen with our
minister," said George Gaston, who had swung himself softly up to our
party on his crutches, unobserved by any one, while Claude was speaking,
and now stood glaring upon him.

"Ah, that is a different matter. I _may_ go there, George. I am told it
is a very gay court; besides, I am curious about Denmark, naturally.
Every one is who loves Shakespeare and the 'royal Dane,' you know."

Again that fatal pallor of mine swept from my heart to brow, and this
time the large, dark gray eye of the boy was fixed on me with agony
unspeakable. He dropped it suddenly, wheeled on his supporting-sticks,
and turned away, ghastly pale himself, to seek the shelter of the
portico, where