loves
company as well as Misery."

Belinda took it in like lightning. Sophy was one of the prigs who do not
care to drink even in reason. Poor Morry!

She smiled at him, letting her eyes turn full on his for the first time.

"Of course I enjoy it!" she said. "I _love_ the funny little
'razzle-dazzle' feeling it gives me! But the greatest part of the fun is
drinking it _with_ some one.... Some one you like, of course."

"By George, you're a little brick, Linda! Have some more...."

"No," said Belinda, still smiling, and putting her hand over her glass.
"'Enough's' _heaps_ better than a feast.... I like to sparkle, but I
don't want to boil over...."

"Oh, Belinda! _Belinda!_" said her step-mother.

Sophy came to the rescue.

"An old negro said the best thing I've ever heard about the way that
champagne makes one feel," she remarked lightly. "I gave him a glass one
Christmas at Sweet-Waters. He'd never tasted champagne before, and I
asked him if he liked it. He said: 'Laws, Miss Sophy--dat I does! I
feels like I'se done hit dee funny-bones all over me!'"

While every one was laughing at this, she rose. Harold Grey excused
himself to "write letters." "Good riddance!" Loring muttered to Belinda,
as Harold disappeared and they followed Sophy and Mrs. Horton towards
the drawing-room.

Loring was in his usual after-dinner state--not tipsy, but over-excited.
He flashed a side-glance of appraisal. "You've bloomed into an
out-and-out beauty, Linda. But I don't suppose you need me to tell you
that."

"I think I rather do, Morry."

"Oh, cut it, Linda! Don't try the 'maiden-modesty' act on me.... You
know as well as I do that you're a dazzler."

They had lingered by the front door, instead of going on into the
drawing-room. A full moon was rising. As Belinda stood in the open
doorway, one side of her face and figure was silver, and one golden from
the hall lamps. She looked like a wonderful figure of mingled fires. In
the strange illumination of her face, her eyes burned dark and full. She
and Loring leaned against the opposite door-jambs, gazing at each other.

"I can't get over your being 'grown up,'" Morris said a little thickly,
as she did not reply to his last remark.

"Yes ... I'm 'grown up,'" she said softly. She kept looking at him. Then
she looked at the sea, then she looked back at him again. "It's nice ...
being a woman," she added, still in that very soft voice.

"'Nice'?" asked Loring, with a short la