else can we even
smile at them? I want you to see Miss Sarah."

"But who will point her out to me? where? when?"

"I will do it to-night, at the opera. I bet she will be there!"

Daniel was in evening costume, having called upon Henrietta, and then he
was all ready.

"Very well," he said, "I am willing."

Without losing a moment, they went out, and reached the theatre just
as the curtain rose on the fourth act of Don Giovanni. They were,
fortunately, able to secure two orchestra-chairs. The stage was
gorgeous; but what did they care for the singer on the boards, or the
divine music of Mozart? Brevan took his opera-glasses out, and rapidly
surveying the house, he had soon found what he was looking for. He
touched Daniel with his elbow, and, handing him the glasses, whispered
in his ear,--

"Look there, in the third box from the stage; look, there she is!"

V.

Daniel looked up. In the box which Maxime had pointed out to him he saw
a girl of such rare and dazzling beauty, that he could hardly retain
a cry of admiration. She was leaning forward, resting on the velvet
cushion of her box, in order to hear better.

Her hair, perfectly overwhelming in its richness, was so carelessly
arranged, that no one could doubt it was all her own; it was almost
golden, but with such a bright sheen, that at every motion sparks seemed
to start from its dark masses. Her large, soft eyes were overshadowed by
long lashes; and as she now opened them wide, and now half closed them
again, they changed from the darkest to the lightest blue.

Her lips smiled in all the freshness and innocence of merry youth,
displaying now and then two rows of teeth, matchless in their beauty and
regularity.

"Can that be," said Daniel to himself, "the wretched creature whose
portrait Maxime has just given me?"

A little behind her, and half-hid in the shade of the box, appeared
a large bony head, adorned with an absurd bunch of feathers. Her eyes
flashed indignation; and her narrow lips seemed to say perpetually,
"Shocking!" That was Mrs. Brian.

Still farther back, barely discernible after long examination, arose a
tall, stiff figure, a bald, shining head, two dark, deep-sunk eyes, a
hooked nose, and a pair of immense streaming whiskers. That was the Hon.
Thomas Elgin, commonly known as Sir Thorn.

As Daniel was persistently examining the box, with the smiling girl,
the stern old woman, and the placid old man in the background, he felt
d