but
faintly, and awoke sighing echoes in your heart, like the minor chord
accenting the ecstatic movement which seemed to hold the world in
rhythm. How lustily you caroled the chorus to hide your tender feelings!
Some of those round windows have such dear memories clinging to
them--aye! clinging is the word--that I dare not look up at them any
more from Broadway.

My story tells of Trinity bells,
When chimes ring clear
And harbor lights are flashing,
Beneath the starry bower,
Where a dying year brings not a tear
To young hearts in the tower.

How sweetly swells--how merrily bells!
The song of youth,
To lift the soul enraptured--
A glance may tell the story,
Prompted by Cupid, now shyly hid--
Anon he'll claim the glory.

Remember that Gabrielle Tescheron was enjoying herself like all the
other girls that night--that New Year's eve, a little more than three
years before the opening of our tale, and Jim Hosley was deep in all the
fun. On the floor above the Gibson apartment, the young folks danced
around the works of the clock to the music of a violin and harp, and
from early evening till late--or early, as you please--they had the best
kind of a time--the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters--for it was a
family party. All the Gibson relatives and their friends were there, for
it would not seem like New Year's to them to celebrate the coming of the
year away from that romantic nest. Don't ask me to analyze the hearts of
Gabrielle and Jim to the whys and wherefores, for the potencies of love
are beyond the analysis even of the purists, although they give us many
words of explanation which get around at last to the old formula: "They
fell in love." And it was as if they had dropped from one of the round
windows as they leaned far out together to catch the sound of the
chimes, so sudden and so deep was the fall.

Education and training in modern business methods had left Gabrielle
just a simple girl, aside from all her accomplishments. Her laugh was
the loudest and her zeal for a good time the strongest. She entered into
the revels with zest, prompted Nellie Gibson to exhibitions of mimicry,
recited, cleverly told anecdotes evolved from her own experiences,
played, sang, danced and cheered for the host and hostess. It was well
there were no neighbors to complain.

Jim, I have been told, was completely fascinated early in the evening,
and his devotions became