harsh daylight
shines once more upon our lives. This is my first happy evening for
many months; I thank you for giving it to me. I always knew that you
loved me, and if I were only a different man from what I unfortunately
am--"

"O Felix!" she pleaded, looking him full in the face. "You grieve me;
it is not kind of you to shame me so, for I suffered so much before I
could bring myself to admit my fault and see myself as you must have
seen me for a long time past. O Felix! that you could love me in spite
of all--that you could grieve for me--but wait! I have a thousand
things to tell you--I must tell you them to-night--at once--but not
here among all these merry people--and look there, I see some of your
friends coming--only tell me how and where--"

He had no time to answer, for at this moment Jansen approached, with
Julie hanging on his arm, both with faces that made no attempt to
conceal the part that they had taken in bringing about this great
happiness. They refrained, however, from making any remarks that might
embarrass the young couple, and simply invited them to be their
_vis-a-vis_ in a quadrille that was just going to begin. A pressure of
the hand from Jansen was all that passed between the two friends in
regard to the event. But Jansen and Julie helped to eat the oranges
that were divided into sections and passed about by Irene; then,
separating into couples again, they entered the hall, where the other
couples had already taken their places.

However, they were by no means sorry to be left alone, and they got up
a quadrille of their own in one of the corners near the windows, with
Schnetz and Angelica and the Capuchin and the headless martyr for side
couples.

And indeed these eight figures were well calculated to afford an
inexhaustible fund of amusement for one another, and the novelty of the
contrast between the two beautiful and the two grotesque couples
attracted around them all those outsiders who, for one reason or
another, had not taken part in the dance. Nothing could have been finer
or more pleasing than when this blonde, blooming Venetian figure,
in the fullness of its ripe beauty, advanced to meet this slim,
foreign-looking, dazzling gypsy, and the hands of the two charming
creatures met, and their eyes beamed upon one another. On the other
hand, it was one of the funniest and most picturesque sights imaginable
when gaunt Alba bore down with his stiff, spidery walk upon the holy
martyr, w