, and now in the ravishing afternoon glow, with the blue air
all saturated with golden gleams, she yielded to the Parthenopean
spell, which, once felt, seems never to be forgotten.

Had it the power to chant to rest that sombre past which memory kept
as a funeral theme for ever on its vibrating strings? Was there at
last a file for the serpent, that had so long made its lair in her
distorted and envenomed nature?

At thirty-three time ceases to tread with feathery feet, and the
years grow self-asserting, italicize themselves in passing; and
across the dial of woman's beauty the shadow of decadence falls
aslant. But although Mrs. Orme had offered sacrifice to that
inexorable Terminus, who dwells at the last border line of youth, the
ripeness and glow of her extraordinary loveliness showed as yet no
hint of the coming eclipse.

Health lent to cheek and lip its richest, warmest tints, and though
the silvery splendour of hope shone no longer in the eloquent brown
eyes, the light of an almost accomplished triumph imparted a baleful
brilliance, which even the long lashes could not veil.

Her pale lilac robe showed admirably the transparency of her
complexion, and in her waving gilded hair she wore a cluster of
delicate rose anemones.

Her gaze seemed to have crossed the blue pavement of sea, and rested
on the purpling outlines of Ischia and Capri; but the dimpling smile
that crossed her face sprang from no dreamy reverie of Parthenope
legends, and her voice was low and deep like one rehearsing for some
tragic outbreak.

"So Samson felt in Dagon's temple, amid the jubilee of his
tormentors, when silent and calm, girded only by the sense of his
wrongs, he meekly bowed to rest himself; and all the while his arms
groped stealthily around the pillars destined to avenge him. Ah! how
calm, how holy, all outside of my heart seems! How in contrast with
that charnel-house yonder vision of peaceful loveliness appears as
incongruous as the nightingales which the soul of Sophocles heard
singing in the grove of the Furies? After to-day will the world ever
look quite the same to me? Thirty-three years have brought me swiftly
to the last fatal page; and shall the hand falter that writes
_finis_?"

A strangely solemn expression drifted over her countenance, but at
that moment a tall form darkened the doorway, and she smiled.

"Come in, General Laurance. Punctuality is essentially an American
virtue, rarely displayed in this _dolce