tle creatures, after vainly flapping its wings, had
fallen on the balcony. Mae picked it up. It half opened its eyes at her
and then lay still in her hands.

"It is dead," said Mae, quietly, going up to Norman. "Oh! Mr. Mann, I
thought Carnival meant real fun, not cruelty. Isn't there anywhere in
this big world where we can get free from such dreadful things? Well!"
she added, impatiently, as Norman paused.

"Give a slow fellow who likes the world better than you do, time to
apologize for it," replied Norman, as familiarly as Eric would have
done. The tone pleased Mae. She looked up and laughed lightly. "At any
rate," suggested he, "let's forget the cruelty now and take the fun.
Three of them are safe and very likely this scrap," and he touched
the dead bird in her hand, "is flying to rejoin his brothers in
hunting-grounds that are stocked with angle-worms, and such game. We are
to have a good time to-day, you and I."

At this moment Eric rushed up. "Say, Mann," he cried, "here they come.
They have taken the balcony just opposite, after all. And Miss Hopkins
looks perfectly in a white veil. And oh! here are the rest of our own
party."

Mae lifted her eyes to the opposite side of the street, but they did not
fall to the level of the Hopkins-Rae party, being stopped by something
above. At a high, fourth-story window, beyond the circle of flying fun
and frolic, confetti and flowers, Mae saw a wonderful woman's face, a
face with great dark eyes and raven hair. A heavily-figured white lace
veil was pulled low over her brow, and fell in folds against her cheeks.
Her skin was white, the scarlet of her face concentrating in her lips.

There was a strange consonance between the creamy heavy lace and its
flowing intertwined figures, and the face it encircled. A mystery, a
grace, a subtle charm, that had the effect of a vivid dream, in its
combination of clearness and unreality. There was life, with smothered
passion and pride and pain in it, Mae was sure. So near to her that her
voice could have arched the little distance easily, and yet so far away
from her life and all that touched it.

A gentleman attending the lady whispered to her. She bent her eyes on
Mae, and met her glance with a smile, and Mae smiled rapturously back.

Mae had been looking for Bero all that afternoon. She felt sure he would
be there, and very soon she saw him among a crowd of officers sauntering
slowly down the Corso. He looked up at the window op