"Regina, will you touch the bell for Hattie, that she may come and carry away all this breakfast, which I have not touched, and the bare sight of which surfeits me? From the amount supplied, one might imagine me a modern Polyphemus, or, abjuring the classics, a second old Mrs. Philipone, who positively drank four cups of tea at the last 'Kettledrum.' How fervently she should pray for continued peace with China, and low tariff on Pekoe? I scarcely know which is the greater hardship, to abstain from food when very hungry, or to impose upon one's digestive apparatus when it piteously protests, asking for 'rest, only rest.'"

It was twelve o'clock on a bright, cold day in December, but Olga was still in bed; and as she raised herself, crushing the pillows under her shoulder for support, Regina, sewing beside her, thought she had never seen her look so handsome.

The abundant ruddy hair tossed about in inextricable confusion, curled and twined, utterly regardless of established style, making a bright warm frame for the hazel eyes that seemed unusually keen and sparkling, and the smooth fair cheeks bore a rich scarlet tinge, rather remarkable from the fact that their owner had danced until three o'clock that morning.

"Instead of impairing your complexion, late hours seem to increase its brilliancy."

"Regina, never dogmatize; it is a rash and unphilosophic habit that leads you to ignore secondary causes. I have a fine colour to-day, ergo the 'German' is superior to any of the patent chemical cosmetics? No such thing. I am tired enough in body to look just like what I feel, that traditional Witch of Endor; but a stroke of wonderful good fortune has so elated my spirits, that despite the fatigue of outraged muscles and persecuted nerves, my exultant pride and delight paint my cheeks in becoming tints. How puzzled you look! You pretty, sober, solemn, demure blue-eyed Annunciation lily, is there such a thing among flowers? If I tripped in the metaphor, recollect that I am no adept in floriculture, only know which blossoms look best on a velvet bonnet or a chip hat, and which dainty leaves and petals laid upon my Lucretia locks make me most resemble Hebe. Are you consumed by curiosity?"

"Not quite; still I should like to know what good fortune has rendered you so happy?"

"Wait until Hattie is beyond hearing. Come, take away these dishes, and be sure to eat every morsel of that omelette, for I would not willingly mortify Octave's vanity. When you have regaled yourself with it, show him the empty dish, tell him it was delicious, and that I send thanks. Hattie, say to mamma I shall not be able to go out to-day."

"Miss Regina, I was told to tell you that you must dress for the rehearsal, as Mrs. Palma will take you in the carriage."

"Very well. I shall be ready, if go I must."

"Bravo! How gracefully you break to harness! But when these Palmas hold the bit, it would be idle to plunge, kick, or attempt to run. They are for rebellious humanity, what Rarey was for unruly horseflesh. Once no fiery colt of Ukraine blood more stubbornly refused the bridle than I did; but Erle Palma smiled and took the reins, and behold the metamorphosis! Did he command your attendance at this 'Cantata'?"

"Not exactly; but he said he would be displeased if I failed to comply with Mrs. Brompton's request, because she was an old friend; and moreover that Professor Hurtsel had said they really required my voice for the principal solo."

"Did it occur to you to threaten to break down entirely, burst into tears, and disgrace things generally, if forced to sing before such an audience? Pride is the only lever that will move him the billionth fraction of an inch; and he would never risk the possibility of being publicly mortified by his ward's failure. He dreads humiliation of any kind, far more than cholera or Asiatic plague, or than even the eternal loss of that infinitesimal microscopic bit of flint, which he is pleased in facetious moments to call his soul."

"Of course I could not threaten him; but I told him the distressing truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's will be critical, and I feel extremely timid."

"And he dared you—under penalty of his everlasting wrath—to break down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?"

"No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of destitute orphans, and that the charitable object should stimulate me."

"Charity! Madame Roland incautiously blundered in her grand apostrophe, hastily picked up the wrong word to fling at the heads of her brutal tormentors. Had she lived in this year of grace, she would certainly have said: 'Oh, Charity! how much hypocrisy is practised in thy name!' How many grim and ghastly farces are enacted in thy honour! Oh, Charity! heavenly maid! what solemn shameful shams are masked beneath thy celestial garments? Of late this fashionable amusement called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art; and old-fashioned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern sister. Understand, it is not peculiar to our own great city,—is a rank growth that flourishes all over America, possibly elsewhere. At certain seasons, when it is positively wicked to eat chicken salad, porter-house steak, and boned turkey, and when the thought of attending the usual round of parties gives good people nightmare, and sinful folks yet in the bonds of iniquity a prospective claim to the pleasant and enticing style of future amusements which Orcagna painted at Pisa, then Charity rushes to the rescue of ennuied society, and mercifully bids it give Calico Balls for a Foundling Hospital, or ThÉ Musicale for the benefit of a Magdalen Home, or a Cantata and Refreshments to build a Sailors' Bethel, or help to clothe and feed the destitute. A few ladies dash around in open carriages and sell tickets, and somebody's daughters make ample capital for future investments, as Charity Angels, by riding, dancing, singing, and eating in becoming piquant costumes, for the 'benefit of the afflicted poor.'"

"Oh, Olga! how unjustly severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable! How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you associate intimately?"

"I assure you I am not maligning 'our set,' only refer to a universal tendency of this advancing age. I merely strip the outside rind, and look at the kernel, and therefore I 'see the better, my dear,' horrified little rustic Red Ridinghood! Now, you are quite in earnest, and you trudge along carrying your alms to this poor old Grandmother Charity; but before long you will have your eyes opened roughly, and learn as I did that the dear pitiful grandmother is utterly dead and gone; and the fangs and claws of the wolf will show you which way your cake and honey went. A most voracious wolf, this same Public Charity, and blessed with the digestion of an ostrich. But go you to the Cantata, and sing your best, and if you happen to fall at the feet of pretty little CÉcile Brompton, you will hear in the distance a subdued growl; the first note of the lupine fantasia that inevitably awaits you. Oh! I wonder if ever this green earth knew a time when hypocrisy and cant did not prowl even among the young lambs, pasturing in innocence upon the 'thousand hills' of God? It seems to me that cant cropped out in the first pair that ever were born, and Cain has left an immense family. Cant everywhere, in science and religion; in churches and in courts; cant among lawyers, doctors, preachers; cant around the hearth; cant even around the hearse. It is the carnival of cant, this age of ours, and heartily as I despise it, I too have been duly noosed and collared, and taught the buttery dialect, and I am meekly willing to confess myself 'born thrall' of cant."

Regina smiled and shook her head, and tossing her large strong white hands restlessly over her pillow, Olga continued:

"Indeed, I am desperately in earnest, and it is a melancholy truth that Longfellow tells us: 'Things are not what they seem.' You appear disinclined to believe that I am one of those 'whited sepulchres,' outwardly fair and comely, but filled with unsavoury dust and ugly grinning skulls? Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets, jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires. Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice; nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand—your present guardian. Strategy is better than fierce assault, bloodless cunning than a gory pitched battle; Cambyses' cats took Pelusium more successfully than the entire Persian army could have done, and the head dresses Hannibal arranged for his oxen, delivered him from the clutches of Fabius and the legions. In my ignorance of polite and prudent tactics, I dashed into the conflict, yelled, clawed (metaphorically, you understand), and fought like the Austrians at Wagram; but of course came out always miserably beaten, with trailing banners and many gaping wounds. Regina, you might just as well stand below the Palisades, and fire at them with cartridges of boiled rice, as make open fight with Erle Palma. Be wise and assume the appearance of submission, no matter how stubbornly you are resolved not to give up. Don't you know that Cilician geese outwit even the eagles? In passing over Taurus, the geese always carry stones in their mouths, and thus by bridling their gabbling tongues they safely cross the mountain infested with eagles, without being discovered by their foes. I commend to you the strategy of silence."

"Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful. I consider it dishonourable and contemptible."

"Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed frock-coats? Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that the world is improving, and nous avons changÉ tout cela!

'We have that sort of courtesy about us,
We would not flatly call a fool a fool.'

I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might be found, who still say 'tadpole,' whereas we know only that embryonic batrachians exist: and it is just possible that in the extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being sleepy she intended 'going to bed,' which you must admit could be an everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely 'retire;' leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,—into the cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and which the Romans kept in their cubiculum. Even in my childhood, when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a bathroom; but now crÉme de la crÉme know only 'lavatory.' Just so, in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as 'deceitful' have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when they are let loose on society again you never dream that you meet anything but becomingly dressed 'policy;' and fashionable 'diplomacy' has hunted 'insincerity'—that other horrid remnant of old-fogyism—as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of the Modocs. If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields! Sometimes silence is power; try it."

"But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and that, I think, I could never be."

"It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable social organon I want to teach you. Of course you have heard your guardian quote Emerson? He is a favourite author with some who frequent the classic halls of the 'Century;' but perhaps you do not know that he has investigated 'Courage,' and thrown new light upon that ancient and rare attribute of noble souls? Now, my dear, in dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion's claws, and crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence."

"Have you found it successful?"

"Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed. Now I begin to comprehend Tennyson's admonition, 'Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,' and I generously offer to economize your school fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience."

"Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me."

"Ah, I had almost forgotten. Wonderful, glorious good fortune! The price of Circassian skins has gone up in the matrimonial slave-market."

Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked perplexed.

"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you."

For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so compassionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone:

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I think so. I will try."

"Well, then, prepare to envy me. Until yesterday I was poor Olga Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh, symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure. Perhaps you do not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you) that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death. My own poor father left nothing of this world's goods, consequently I am unprovided for. We have always been generously and kindly cared for, well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us. But for some years I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the ordinary batch of charity loaves. Yesterday I was a pensioner on his bounty, but the god of this world's riches—i.e., Plutus—in consideration no doubt of my long and faithful worship at his altars, has suddenly had compassion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively one of the richest women in New York. Now do you wonder that Circassia is so jubilant?"

"Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?"

"Oh no! you idiotic cherub! No such heavenly blessing as that. Plutus is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to his own profits. I mean that at last, after many vexatious and grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the highest market price. Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his fine yacht. Congratulate me."

"He gives them to you? Adopts and makes you his heiress? How very good and kind of him, and I am so glad to hear it."

"He offers to many me, you stupid dove!"

"Not that Mr. Congreve who dined here last week, and who is so deaf?"

"That same veritable Midas. You must know he is not deaf from age; oh no! Scarlet fever when he was teething."

"You do not intend to marry him?"

"Why not? Do you suppose I have gone crazy, and lost the power of computing rents and dividends? Are people ever so utterly mad as that? If I were capable of hesitating a moment, I should deserve a strait-jacket for the remainder of my darkened days. Why, I am reliably informed that his property is unencumbered, and worth at least two millions three hundred thousand dollars! I think even dear mamma, who mother-like overrates my charms, never in her rosiest visions dreamed I could command such a high price. The slave trade is looking up once more; threatens to grow brisk, in spite of Congressional prohibition."

She sat quite erect, with her hands clasped across the back of her head; a crimson spot burning on each cheek, and an unnatural lustre in her laughing eyes.

"Olga, do you love him?"

"Now I am sure you are the identical white pigeon that Noah let out of the ark; for nothing less antediluvian could ask such obsolete, such utterly dead and buried questions! I love dearly and sincerely rich laces, old wines, fine glass, heavy silver, blooded horses fast and fiery, large solitaires, rare camei; and all these comfortable nice little things I shall truly honour, and tenaciously cling to, 'until death us do part,' and as Mrs. Silas Congreve—hush! Here comes mamma."

"Olga, why are you not up and dressed? You accepted the invitation to 'lunch' with Mrs. St. Clare, and what excuse can I possibly frame?"

"I have implicit faith in your ingenuity, and give you carte blanche in the manufacture of an apology."

"And my conscience, Olga?"

"Oh dear! Has it waked up again? I thought you had chloroformed it, as you did the last spell of toothache a year ago. I hope it is not a severe attack this time?"

She took her mother's hand, and kissed it lightly.

"My daughter, are you really sick?"

"Very, mamma; such fits of palpitation."

"I never saw you look better. I shall tell no stories for you to Mrs.
St. Clare."

"Cruel mamma! when you know how my tender maidenly sensibilities are just now lacerated by the signal success of such patient manoeuvring! Tell Mrs. St. Clare that like the man in the Bible who could not attend the supper, because he had married a wife, I stayed at home to ponder my brilliant prospects as Madame Silas——"

"Olga!" exclaimed Mrs. Palma, with a warning gesture toward Regina.

"Do you think I could hide my bliss from her? She knows the honour proffered me, and has promised to keep the secret."

"Until the gentleman had received a positive and final acceptance, I should imagine such confidence premature."

Mrs. Palma spoke sternly, and withdrew her fingers from her daughter's clasp.

"As if there were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance! As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour me presently. Don't! I am a wiry mouse, proud and sensitive, and some mice, it is said, will not permit insult added to injury."

"Regina, are you ready? I shall take you to Mrs. Brompton's, and it is quite time to start."

Mrs. Palma looked impatiently at Regina, and as the latter rose to get her hat and wrappings from her own room, she saw the mother lean over the pillows, saw also that the white arms of the girl were quickly thrown up around her neck.

Soon after, she heard the front door-bell ring, and when she started down the steps, Olga called from her room:

"Come in. Mamma has to answer a note before she leaves home. When you go down, please ask Terry to give a half-bottle of that white wine with the bronze seal to Octave, and tell him to make and send up to me as soon as possible a wine-chocolate. Mrs. Tarrant's long-promised grand affair comes off to-night, and I must build myself up for the occasion."

"Are you feverish, Olga? Your cheeks are such a brilliant scarlet?"

"Only the fever of delicious excitement, which all young ladies of my sentimental temperament are expected to indulge, when assured that the perilous voyage of portionless maidenhood is blissfully ended in the comfortable harbour of affluent matrimony. Does that feel like ordinary fever?"

She put out her large well-formed hand, and, clasping it between her own, Regina exclaimed:

"How very cold! You are ill, or worse still, you are unhappy. Your heart is not in this marriage."

"My heart? It is only an automatic contrivance for propelling the blood through my system, and so long as it keeps me in becoming colour, I have no right to complain. The theory of hearts entering into connubial contracts, is as effete as Stahl's Phlogiston! One of the wisest and wittiest of living authors, recognizing the drift of the age, offers to supply a great public need, by—'A new proposition and suited to the tendencies of modern civilization, namely, to establish a universal Matrimonial Agency, as well ordered as the Bourse of Paris, and the London Stock Exchange. What is more useful and justifiable than a Bourse for affairs? Is not marriage an affair? Is anything else considered in it but the proper proportions? Are not these proportions values capable of rise and fall, of valuation and tariff? People declaim against marriage brokers. What else, I pray you, are the good friends, the near relations who take tie field, except obliging, sometimes official brokers?' Now, Regina, 'M. Graindorge,' who makes this proposal to the Parisian world, has lived long in America, and doubtless received his inspiration in the United States. Hearts? We modern belles compress our hearts, as the Chinese do their feet, until they become numb and dwarfed; and some even roast theirs before the fires of Moloch until they resemble human pÂtÉ de foie gras. There are a great many valuable truths taught us in the ancient myths, and for rugged unvarnished wisdom commend me to the Scandinavian. Did you ever read the account of Iduna's captivity in the castle of Thiassi in JÖtunheim?"

"I never did, and what is more, I never will, if it teaches people to think as harshly of the world as you seem to do."

"You sweet, simple blue-eyed dunce! How shamefully your guardian neglects your education! Never even heard of the Ellewomen? Why, they compose the most brilliant society all over the world. Iduna was a silly creature, with a large warm heart, and loved her husband devotedly; and in order to cure her of this arrant absurd folly she was carried away and shut up with the Ellewomen, very fair creatures always smiling sweetly. The more bitterly the foolish young wife wept and implored their pity, the more pleasantly they smiled at her; and when she examined them closely she found that despite their beauty they were quite hollow, were made with no hearts at all, and could compassionate no one. I have an abiding faith that they had Borgia hair, hazel eyes, red lips, and sloping white shoulders just like mine. They have peopled the world; a large colony settled in this country, we are nearly all Ellewomen now, and you are an ignorant, wretched little Iduna, minus the apples, and must get rid of your heart at once, in order to smile constantly as we do."

"Olga, don't libel yourself and society so unmercifully. Don't marry Mr. Congreve. Think how horrible it must be to spend all your life with a man whom you do not love!"

"I assure you, that will form no part either of his programme, or of mine. I shall have my 'societies' (charitable, of course), my daily drives, my 'Luncheons,' and box the opera with occasional supper at Delmonico's; and Mr. Congreve will have his Yacht affairs, and Wall Street 'corners' to look after, and will of course spend the majority of his evenings at that fascinating 'Century,' which really is the only thing that your quartz-souled guardian cherishes any affection for."

"But Mr. Palma is not married, and when you are Mr. Congreve's wife, of course instead of going to his club, your husband will expect to remain at home with you."

"That might be possible in the old-fashioned parsonage where you imbibed so many queer outlandish doctrines; but I do assure you, we have quite outgrown such an intolerable orthodox system of penance. The less married people see of each other these days, the fewer scalps dangle around the hearthstone. The customs of the matrimonial world have changed since that distant time when sacrificing to Juno as the Goddess of Wedlock, the gall was so carefully extracted from the victim and thrown behind the altar; implying that in married life all anger and bitterness should be exterminated. If Tacitus could revisit this much-civilized world of the nineteenth century, I wonder if he could find a nation who would tempt him to repeat what he once wrote concerning the sanctity of marriage among the Germans? 'There vice is not laughed at, and corruption is not called the fashion.' Mr. Silas Congreve is much too enlightened to prefer his slippers at home to his place at the club. As for sitting up as a rival in the 'Century,' female vanity never soared to so sublime a height of folly! and if Erle Palma were married forty times, his darling club would still hold the first place in his flinty affections. It must be a most marvellously attractive place, that bewitching 'Century,' to magnetize so completely the iron of his nature. I have my suspicion that one reason why the husbands cling so fondly to its beloved precincts is because it corresponds in some respects to the wonderful 'Peacestead' of the Æsir, whose strongest law was that 'no angry blow should be struck, and no spiteful word spoken within its limits.' Hence it is a tempting retreat from the cyclones and typhoons that sometimes sing among a man's Lares and Penates. In view of my own gilded matrimonial future, I reverently salute my ally—the 'Century!' There! Mamma calls you. Go trill like a canary at the Cantata, and waste no sighs on the smiling Ellewoman you leave behind you. Tell Octave to hurry my wine-chocolate."

She drew the girl to her, looked at her with sparkling merry eyes, and kissed her softly on each cheek.

When Regina reached the door and looked back, she saw that Olga had thrown herself face downward on the bed, and the hands were clasped above the tanged mass of ruddy hair.

During the drive, Mrs. Palma was unusually cheerful, almost loquacious, and her companion attributed the agreeable change in her generally reticent manner to maternal pride and pleasure in the contemplated alliance of her only child.

No reference was made to the subject, and when they reached Mrs. Brompton's, Regina was not grieved to learn that the rehearsal had been postponed until he following day, in consequence of the sickness of Professor Hurtzsel.

"Then Farley must take you home, after I get out at Mrs. St. Clare's.
The carriage can return for me about four o'clock."

"That will not be necessary. I wish to go and see Mrs. Mason, who has been out of town since July, and I can very easily walk. She has changed her lodgings."

"Have you consulted Erle on the subject?"

"No, ma'am; but I do not think he would object."

"At least it would be best to obtain his permission, for only last week when you stayed so long at that floral establishment, he said he should forbid your going out alone. Wait till to-morrow."

"To-morrow I shall have no time, and all my studies are over for to-day. Why should he care? He allows me to go to Mrs. Mason's in the carriage."

"It is entirely your own affair, but my advice is to consult him. At this hour he is probably in his office; drive down and see him, and if he consents, then go. Here is Mrs. St. Clare's. Farley, take Miss Orme to Mr. Palma's office, and be sure you are back here at half-past three. Don't keep me waiting."

Never before had Regina gone to the law-office, and to-day she very reluctantly followed the unpalatable advice; but the urgency of Mrs. Palma's manner constrained obedience. When the carriage stopped, she went in, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed, and secretly hoping that her guardian was absent. At a large desk near the door sat a young man intently copying some papers, and as the visitor entered, he rose and stared. "Is Mr. Palma here?"

"He will be in a few moments. Take a seat."

Hoping to escape before his return, she said hastily: "I have not time to wait. Can you give me a pencil and piece of paper? I wish to leave a note."

There were two desks in the apartment, but glancing at their dusty appearance, and then at the dainty pearl-tinted gloves of the stranger, the young man answered hesitatingly:

"You will find writing materials on the desk in the next room. The door is not locked."

She hurried in, sat down before the desk where a number of papers were loosely scattered, and took up a pen lying near a handsome bronze inkstand.

How should she commence? She had never written him a line, and felt perplexed. While debating whether she should say Dear Mr. Palma or My Dear Guardian, her eyes wandered half unconsciously about the apartment, until they were arrested by a large portrait hanging over the mantlepiece. It was a copy of the picture her mother had directed to be painted by Mr. Harcourt, and which had been sent to Europe.

This copy differed in some respects from the original portrait; Hero had been entirely omitted, and in the hands of the painted girl were clusters of beautiful snowy lilies.

Surprised and gratified that he deemed her portrait worthy of a place in his office, she hastily wrote on a sheet of legal cap:

"DEAR MR. PALMA,—Having no engagements until to-morrow, I wish to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Mason, who has removed to No. 900, East —— Street, but Mrs. Palma advised me to ask your permission. Hoping that you will not object to my making the visit, without having waited to see you, I am,

"Very respectfully
Your ward,
REGINA ORME."

Leaving it open on the desk, where he could not fail to see it, she glanced once more at the portrait, and hurried away, fearful of being intercepted ere she reached the carriage.

"Drive to No. 900, East —— Street."

The carriage had not turned the neighbouring corner, when Mr. Palma leisurely approached his office door, with his thoughts intent upon an important will case, which was creating much interest and discussion among the members of the Bar, and which in an appeal form he had that day consented to argue before the Supreme Court. As he entered the front room, the clerk looked up.

"Stuart, has Elliott brought back the papers?"

"Not yet, sir. There was a young lady here a moment ago. Did you meet her?"

"No. What was her business?"

"She did not say. Asked for you, and would not wait."

"What name?"

"Did not give any. Think she left a note on your desk. She was the loveliest creature I ever looked at."

"My desk? Hereafter in my absence allow no one to enter my private office. I did not consider it necessary to caution you, or inform you that my desk is not public property, but designed for my exclusive service. In future when I am out keep that door locked. Step around to Fitzgerald's and get that volume of Reports he borrowed last week." The young man coloured, picked up his hat, and disappeared; and the lawyer walked into his sanctum and approached his desk.

Seating himself in the large revolving chair, his eyes fell instantly upon the long sheet, with the few lines traced in a delicate feminine hand.

Over his cold face swept a marvellous change, strangely softening its outlines and expression. He examined the writing curiously, taking off his glasses and holding the paper close to his eyes; and he detected the alteration in the "Dear," which had evidently been commenced as "My."

Laying it open before him, he took the pen, wrote "my" before the "dear," and drawing a line through the "Regina Orme," substituted above it "Lily."

In her haste she had left on the desk one glove, and her small ivory porte-monnaie which her mother had sent from Rome.

He took up the little pearl-grey kid, redolent of Lubin's "violet," and spread out the almost childishly small fingers on his own broad palm, which suddenly closed over it like a vice; then with a half smile of strange tenderness, in which all the stony sternness of lips and chin seemed steeped and melted, he drew the glove softly, caressingly over his bronzed cheek.

Pressing the spring of the purse, it opened and showed him two small gold dollars, and a five dollar bill. In another compartment, wrapped in tissue paper, was a small bunch of pressed violets, tied with a bit of blue sewing silk. Upon the inside of the paper was written:

"Gathered at Agra. April 8th, 18—."

He knew Mr. Lindsay's handwriting, and his teeth closed firmly as he refolded the paper, and put the purse and glove in the inside breast pocket of his coat. Placing the note in an envelope, he addressed it to "Erle Palma," and locked it up in a private drawer.

Raising his brilliant eyes to the lovely girlish face on the wall, he said slowly, sternly:

"My Lily, and she shall be broken, and withered, and laid to rest in Greenwood, before any other man's hand touches hers. My Lily, housed sacredly in my bosom; blooming only in my heart."