g the last act of the opera--a
Greek costume of soft white silk with trimmings of gold. It was in this
dress that she had roused the audience to such a pitch of admiration by
her beauty, and seen close, as Hannah was privileged to see it now,
there were a score of perfections of detail, in both woman and costume,
which those who saw her from afar would not have been aware of. Hannah,
who had an ardent soul within her very ordinary little body, looked at
her with a sort of worship in her eyes.

Meeting this look, Mrs. Dallas smiled--a smile that was sadder than
tears.

"Oh, Hannah, I am so unhappy," she said. "I want to tell you but I
don't know how. Oh, my child, I am so miserable."

Her utterance had still that little foreign accent that made it so
pathetic, although, in spite of some odd blunders, she had become
almost fluent in the English tongue. There was still no indication of
tears in either her voice or her eyes, as she leaned back in the padded
chair, her head supported by its top, and her long bare arms with their
picturesque Greek bracelets resting wearily on its cushioned sides.

Hannah looked at her with the tenderness of her kind heart overflowing
in great tears from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She pressed
her handkerchief to her face in the vain effort to keep them back, but
the woman for whom they fell shed no tears. She sat there calm and quiet
in her youth and beauty and looked at the plain little school-teacher
with a wistful gaze that seemed as if it might be envy.

"Tell me, Hannah," she said presently, when the girl had dried her eyes
and grown more calm, "tell me frankly, no matter how strange it may seem
to you to have the question asked, what do you think of my husband?"

This startling question naturally found Hannah unprepared with an
answer, and after clearing her throat and getting rather red, she said
confusedly that she had seen so little of Mr. Dallas, her intercourse
with him had been so slight, that she really did not feel that she knew
him well enough to give an answer.

"You know him as well as I do," his wife replied. "As he is to you--as
you see him daily, exactly so he is to me. I have waited and waited for
something more, but in vain. I have come at last to the conclusion that
this is all."

Hannah, between wonder and distress, began to feel the tears rise again.
The other saw them and bent forward and took her hand.

"Don't cry, poor little thing," she said. "