ly the maiden ladies present,
who might be supposed to enter into the feelings of their dusky sisters
beyond the seas. The speaker said, with a touch of humor that always
intensifies a serious discourse, that she had been told that in one of
the New England States there was a superfluity of unmarried women; but
this was an entirely different affair; it was a matter of choice with
these highly educated and accomplished women. And the day had come
when woman could make her choice! At this there was a great clapping
of hands. It was one thing to be free to lead a life of single
self-culture, and quite another to be compelled to lead a single
fife without self-culture. The address was a great success, and much
enthusiasm spread abroad for the cause of the unmarried women of India.

In the audience were Mrs. Eschelle and her daughter. Margaret and Carmen
were made acquainted, and were drawn together by curiosity, and perhaps
by a secret feeling of repulsion. Carmen was all candor and sweetness,
and absorbingly interested in the women of India, she said. With
Margaret's permission she would come and see her, for she believed they
had common friends.

It would seem that there could not be much sympathy between natures so
opposed, persons who looked at life from such different points of view,
but undeniably Carmen had a certain attraction for Margaret. The New
Englander, whose climate is at once his enemy and his tonic, always
longs for the tropics, which to him are a region of romance, as Italy is
to the German. In his nature, also, there is something easily awakened
to the allurements of a sensuous existence, and to a desire for a freer
experience of life than custom has allowed him. Carmen, who showed to
Margaret only her best side--she would have been wise to exhibit
no other to Henderson, but women of her nature are apt to cheapen
themselves with men--seemed an embodiment of that graceful gayety and
fascinating worldliness which make the world agreeable.

One morning, a few days after the Indian function, Margaret was alone in
her own cozy sitting-room. Nothing was wanting that luxury could suggest
to make it in harmony with a beautiful woman, nothing that did not
flatter and please, or nurse, perhaps, a personal sense of beauty,
and impart that glow of satisfaction which comes when the senses are
adroitly ministered to. Margaret had been in a mood that morning to
pay extreme attention to her toilet. The result was the p