precious stones for the evening's triumphs.

At last--a set of sapphires having gained the day--she lays the casket
aside and turns to her husband, while wondering with demure amusement
on the subject of his thoughts during these past few minutes.

He has been thinking of her, no doubt. Her snowy wrapper, with all its
dainty frills and bows, is eminently becoming. Yes, beyond all question
he has been indulging in sentimental regrets.

Sir Penthony's first remark rather dispels the illusion.

"The old boy puts you up very comfortably down here, don't he?" he
says, in a terribly prosaic tone.

Is this all? Has he been admiring the furniture during all these
eloquent moments of silence, instead of her and her innumerable charms?
Insufferable!

"He do," responds she, dryly, with a careful adaptation of his English.

Sir Penthony raises his eyebrows in affected astonishment, and then
they both laugh.

"I do hope you are not going to say rude things to me about last
night," she says, still smiling.

"No. You may remember once before on a very similar occasion I told you
I should never again scold you, for the simple reason that I considered
it language thrown away. I was right, as the sequel proved. Besides,
the extreme becomingness of your toilet altogether disarmed me. By the
bye, when do you return to town?"

"Next week. And you?"

"I shall go--when you go. May I call on you there?"

"Indeed you may. I like you quite well enough," says her ladyship, with
unsentimental and therefore most objectionable frankness, "to wish you
for my friend."

"Why should we not be more than friends, Cecil?" says Stafford, going
up to her and taking both her hands in a warm, affectionate clasp.
"Just consider how we two are situated: you are bound to me forever,
until death shall kindly step in to relieve you of me, and I am bound
to you as closely. Why, then, should we not accept our position, and
make our lives one?"

"You should have thought of all this before."

"How could I? Think what a deception you practiced on me when sending
that miserable picture. I confess I abhor ugliness. And then, your own
conditions,--what could I do but abide by them?"

"There are certain times when a woman does not altogether care about
being taken so completely at her word."

"But that was not one of them." Hastily. "I do not believe you would
have wished to live with a man you neither knew nor cared for."

"Perhaps not." Laughing. "S