l in rosy gauzes with a veiling foam of
dropping silver lace, had begged Mrs. Laudersdale to give her prominence
by dressing for Port; and accordingly that lady had arrayed herself
in velvet, out of which her shoulders rose like snow, and whose rich
duskiness made her perfect pallor more apparent, while its sumptuous
body of color was sprinkled with glittering crystal drops and
coruscations; and wreathing her forehead with crisp vine-leaves and
tendrils, she had bunched together in intricate splendor all the
amethysts, carbuncles, garnets, and rubies in the house, for
grape-clusters at the ear, till she seemed, with her smile and her
sunshine, the express and incarnate spirit of vintage. To-night,
stripped of its sparkling drops, she wore the same dress, and in her
hair a wreath of fresh white roses. Behind her descended a tall and
stately gentleman. She swept forward. "Mr. Raleigh," she murmured, while
her eyes diffused their gloom and fell, "let me introduce you to my
husband!"

The blow had come previously. Mr. Raleigh bowed almost to the ground,
without a word, then looked up and offered his hand. Mr. Laudersdale
comprehended the whole matter at a heartbeat, and took it. Then they
moved on toward other friends, whom, while waiting for knowledge of his
wife's return from her walk, Mr. Laudersdale had not seen. Mr. Raleigh
went in search of Capua, and ere long reappeared.

It grew quite dark; the candles were lighted. Rite slipped in, and,
after having flown about like a thistle-down for a while, mounted a
chair and put her arms about her mother's shoulders. Then Mr. Raleigh,
sitting silently on a sofa, attracted her, and shortly afterward she had
curled herself beside him and fallen asleep with her head upon his
knee; otherwise he did not touch her. Mrs. Laudersdale stood by an open
casement; the servant who had carried her note came up the lawn and
spoke to her from without. There was no one in the house, and he had
left it on the library-table. The pressure of those tender little arms
was yet warm about the mother's neck; she glanced sidelong at the
sleeping child. "He shall never see that note!" she murmured, and
slipped through the casement.

Accustomed to all rash and intrepid adventure during this summer, it
was nothing for her to unmoor a boat, enter it, and lift the oars, not
pausing to observe that it was the Arrow. Just then, however, a little
wind ruffled down and shook the sail, a wind not quite favora