o had better begin their nap without waiting. If I
were Florence Smythe, I'd try it, and begin now,--eh, Clara?"

Miss Browne felt the praise of Myrtle to be slightly alleviated by the
depreciation of Miss Smythe, who had long been a rival of her own. A
little later in the evening Miss Smythe enjoyed almost precisely the same
sensation, produced in a very economical way by Mr. Livingston Jenkins's
repeating pretty nearly the same sentiments to her, only with a change in
the arrangement of the proper names. The two young ladies were left
feeling comparatively comfortable with regard to each other, each
intending to repeat Mr. Livingston Jenkins's remark about her friend to
such of her other friends as enjoyed clever sayings, but not at all
comfortable with reference to Myrtle Hazard, who was evidently considered
by the leading "swell" of their circle as the most noticeable personage
of the assembly. The individual exception in each case did very well as
a matter of politeness, but they knew well enough what he meant.

It seemed to Myrtle Hazard, that evening, that she felt the bracelet on
her wrist glow with a strange, unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had
just been unclasped from the arm of a yohng woman full of red blood and
tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to
her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the
water,--bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river, and
strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length afloat
upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first time found
her destiny. It was to please, and so to command, to rule with gentle
sway in virtue of the royal gift of beauty,--to enchant with the
commonest exercise of speech, through the rare quality of a voice which
could not help being always gracious and winning, of a manner which came
to her as an inheritance of which she had just found the title. She read
in the eyes of all that she was more than any other the centre of
admiration. Blame her who may, the world was a very splendid vision as
it opened before her eyes in its long vista of pleasures and of triumphs.
How different the light of these bright saloons from the glimmer of the
dim chamber at The Poplars! Silence Withers was at that very moment
looking at the portraits of Anne Holyoake and of Judith Pride. "The old
picture seems to me to be fading faster than ever," she was thinking.
B