to the conservatory.

IV.

The soft, warm air, heavy with the breath of the "Grand Duke" and of
orange blossoms; the tremulous half-light from colored lamps hung amid
the leaves; the dead stillness of the place, broken only by the plash
of the fountain falling back into its moss-covered basin, all
contrasted deliciously with the hot, dusty atmosphere and giddy
buzzing under the flaring gas-jets left behind.

They strolled slowly down the gravelled walk, between rows of huge
tubs, moist and flower-laden with the products of almost every clime.
Here gleamed the glossy leaves of the Southern _grandiflora_; the rare
wax plant crept along the wall beyond, its pink, starry blooms
gleaming delicately among the thick, artificial-seeming leaves; while,
as though in honor of the happily-timed birthnight of the fair young
mistress of all, a gorgeous century plant had opened its bud in a
glory of form and color, magnificent as rare.

"Blanche, do you remember how long I have known you?" Morris asked,
suddenly breaking the silence. "Ever since you were like _this_; a
close, callow bud, giving but vague promise of the glorious flowering
of your womanhood! I watched the opening of every petal of your mind
and tried to peer through them into the heart of the flower. But they
sent you away; and now your return dazzles me with the brilliance and
beauty of the full bloom. This was the past--_this_ is the present!"

And reaching up, the man suddenly snapped off the glowing blossom from
the cactus and held it before the girl, close to the pale camellia bud
he had plucked before.

She raised her beautiful face, crowned with its halo-like glory of
hair, full to him; and the expression it took was graver and more
womanly than before. But still no agitation reflected in the candid
eyes that looked steadily into his, and the voice, more softly
pitched, had no tremor in it, as she answered:

"_Please_ think of me, then, as the child you used to know; never as
the _debutante_ who must be fed, _a la_ Bouncey, on the sweets of
sentiment."

"Take sentiment--I mean the higher sentiment, that lifts us sometimes
above our baser worldly nature--out of life, and it is not worth the
living," Morris said earnestly. "That man could not understand it any
more than he could understand you!"

"Perhaps you are right," she answered, quietly. "_We_ are too old
friends to talk society at each other; and you are _so_ different from
him."

Perhaps Mor