he set her eyes
upon his once more, then turned swiftly and almost ran along the hedge
to the gate; but there she stopped and looked back. He was standing
where she had left him, his face again uplifted to the sky.

She waved him an uncertain farewell, and ran into the garden, both palms
against her burning cheeks.

Night is the great necromancer, and strange are the fabrics he weaves;
he lays queer spells; breathes so eerie an intoxication through the
dusk; he can cast such glamours about a voice! He is the very king of
fairyland.

Miss Betty began to walk rapidly up and down the garden paths, her
head bent and her bands still pressed to her cheeks; now and then an
unconscious exclamation burst from her, incoherent, more like a gasp
than a word. A long time she paced the vigil with her stirring heart,
her skirts sweeping the dew from the leaning flowers. Her lips moved
often, but only the confused, vehement "Oh, oh!" came from them, until
at last she paused in the middle of the garden, away from the trees,
where all was open to the sparkling firmament, and extended her arms
over her head.

"O, strange teacher," she said aloud, "I take your beautiful stars! I
shall know how to learn from them!"

She gazed steadily upward, enrapt, her eyes resplendent with their own
starlight.

"Oh, stars, stars, stars!" she whispered.

In the teeth of all wizardry, Night's spells do pass at sunrise;
marvellous poems sink to doggerel, mighty dreams to blown ashes and
solids regain weight. Miss Betty, waking at daybreak, saw the motes
dancing in the sun at her window, and watched them with a placid,
unremembering eye. She began to stare at them in a puzzled way, while a
look of wonder slowly spread over her face. Suddenly she sat upright, as
though something had startled her. Her fingers clenched tightly.

"Ah, if that was playing!"

CHAPTER VIII. A Tale of a Political Difference

Mr. Carewe was already at the breakfast-table, but the light of his
countenance, hidden behind the Rouen Journal, was not vouchsafed to his
daughter when she took her place opposite him, nor did he see fit to
return her morning greeting, from which she generously concluded that
the burning of the two warehouses had meant a severe loss to him.

"I am so sorry, father," she said gently. (She had not called him
"papa" since the morning after her ball.) "I hope it isn't to be a great
trouble to you." There was no response, and, after waiting for so