s a pretty nice
hotel"--hastily adding as a concession of the probable existence of much
finer things at the East--"for a small hotel?"

They imagined this waiter as new to his station in life, as perhaps
just risen to it from some country tavern, and unable to repress his
exultation in what 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, alo