at seemed their sympathetic presence. They were charmed
to have invited his guileless confidence, to have evoked possibly all the
simple poetry of his soul; it was what might have happened in Italy, only
there so much naivete would have meant money; they looked at each other
with rapture and Basil answered warmly while the waiter flushed as at a
personal compliment: "Yes, it 's a nice hotel; one of the best I ever
saw, East or West, in Europe or America."

They rose and left the room, and were bowed out by the head-waiter.

"How perfectly idyllic!" cried Isabel. "Is this Rochester, New York, or
is it some vale of Arcady? Let's go out and see."

They walked out into the moonlit city, up and down streets that seemed
very stately and fine, amidst a glitter of shop-window lights; and then,
Less of their own motion than of mere error, they quitted the business
quarter, and found themselves in a quiet avenue of handsome
residences,--the Beacon Street of Rochester, whatever it was called. They
said it was a night and a place for lovers, for none but lovers, for
lovers newly plighted, and they made believe to bemoan themselves that,
hold each other dear as they would, the exaltation, the thrill, the glory
of their younger love was gone. Some of the houses had gardened spaces
about them, from which stole, like breaths of sweetest and saddest
regret, the perfume of midsummer flowers,--the despair of the rose for
the bud. As they passed a certain house, a song fluttered out of the open
window and ceased, the piano warbled at the final rush of fingers over
its chords, and they saw her with her fingers resting lightly on the
keys, and her graceful head lifted to look into his; they saw him with
his arm yet stretched across to the leaves of music he had been turning,
and his face lowered to meet her gaze.

"Ah, Basil, I wish it was we, there!"

And if they knew that we, on our wedding journey, stood outside, would
not they wish it was they, here?"

"I suppose so, dearest, and yet, once-upon-a-time was sweet. Pass on; and
let us see what charm we shall find next in this enchanted city."

"Yes, it is an enchanted city to us," mused Basil, aloud, as they
wandered on, "and all strange cities are enchanted. What is Rochester to
the Rochesterese? A place of a hundred thousand people, as we read in our
guide, an immense flour interest, a great railroad entrepot, an unrivaled
nursery trade, a university, two commercial colleges, three