some house, horses, style and
all its elegancies; yet you yourself have found no happiness in them."

"But I never should find happiness out of them," answered Caroline. "It is
a pretty amusement for us who have the gold to buy our pleasures with, to
abuse it and speak ill of it. But those who have not it,--you do not hear
them depreciate it so. I believe they would sell out their home-evenings,
those simple enjoyments books speak of and describe so well,--they would
sell them as gladly as the author sells his descriptions of them, for our
equipages, our grand houses, our toilet."

Arnold looked at his neighbor. Her hands, in their exquisitely fitting
lilac gloves, lay carelessly across each other above the folds of the
dress with which they harmonized perfectly. A little sweetbrier rose fell
out from the white lace about her face, against the soft brown of her
hair. Arnold pictured Laura gathering just such a rose from the porch she
had described by the door of her country-home.

"Would you not have enjoyed gathering yourself that delicate rose that
looks coquettish out of its simplicity?" he asked.

"Thank you, no," Caroline interrupted. "I selected it from Madame's Paris
bonnets, because it suited my complexion. If I had picked the rose in the
sun, don't you see my complexion would no longer have suited it?"

"I see you would enjoy life merely as a looker-on," said Arnold. "I would
prefer to be an actor in it. When I have built my own house, and have
digged my own potatoes, I shall know the meaning of house and potatoes. My
wife, meanwhile, will be picking the roses for her hair."

"She will be learning the meaning of potatoes in cooking them," replied
Caroline. "I would, indeed, rather be above life than in it. I have just
enjoyed hearing Lucia sing her last song, and seeing Edgardo kill himself.
I should not care to commit either folly myself. I pity people that have
no money; I think they would as gladly hurry out of their restraints as
Brignoli hurries into his everyday suit, after killing himself nightly as
love-sick tenor."

"I would rather kill myself than think so," said Arnold.

This talk, which had been interrupted by the course of the opera, was
finished as they left their seats. At the door, Mr. Gresham offered to
help Caroline to her carriage. Arnold walked away.

"I would kill myself, if I could fancy that Laura thought so," he said, as
he hurried home.

There was a cart at the door of the hou