s more startling than agreeable. Dancing in
the open air, on the shaven green of lawns, is a pretty and graceful
exercise, and there only can full sweep be allowed for the present
feminine toilet.

"The English breakfast is an institution growing in favor here, and
rightfully, too; for a party of fresh, good-natured, well-dressed
people, assembled at breakfast on a summer morning, is as nearly perfect
a form of reunion as can be devised. All are in full strength from their
night's rest; the hour is fresh and lovely, and they are in condition to
give each other the very cream of their thoughts, the first keen sparkle
of the uncorked nervous system. The only drawback is, that, in our busy
American life, the most desirable gentlemen often cannot spare their
morning hours. Breakfast parties presuppose a condition of leisure; but
when they can be compassed, they are perhaps the most perfectly
enjoyable of entertainments."

"Well," said Marianne, "I begin to waver about my party. I don't know,
after all, but the desire of paying off social debts prompted the idea;
perhaps we might try some of the agreeable things suggested. But, dear
me! there's the baby. We'll finish the talk some other time."

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.

CHAPTER XXXII.

He went straight to the stable, and saddled Black Dick.

But, in the very act, his nature revolted. What, turn his back on her
the moment he had got hold of her money, to take to the other. He could
not do it.

He went back to her room, and came so suddenly that he caught her
crying. He asked her what was the matter.

"Nothing," said she, with a sigh: "only a woman's foolish misgivings. I
was afraid perhaps you would not come back. Forgive me."

"No fear of that," said he. "However, I have taken a resolve not to go
to-day. If I go to-morrow, I shall be just in time; and Dick wants a
good day's rest."

Mrs. Gaunt said nothing; but her expressive face was triumphant.

Griffith and she took a walk together; and he, who used to be the more
genial of the two, was dull, and she full of animation.

This whole day she laid herself out to bewitch her husband, and put him
in high spirits.

It was up-hill work; but when such a woman sets herself in earnest to
delight a man, she reads our sex a lesson in the art, that shows us we
are all babies at it.

However, it was at supper she finally conquered.

Here the lights, her beauty set off with art, her deepening eyes, her
sa