ere laughing. His listless, morose expression had
disappeared; in the place of a brutal-tempered, selfish, bored man, I
saw a brilliant, jovial gentleman. Which was the real man?

"Finish your jelly," said Ben.

"I prefer looking at your brother."

"Leave my brother alone."

"You see nothing but 'the sun which makes a dust, and the grass which
looks green.'"

Miss Munster hoped I was cared for. How gay Desmond was! she had not
seen such a look in his face in a long time. And how strongly he was
marked with the family traits.

"How am I marked, May?" asked Ben.

"Oh, we know worse eccentrics than you are. What are you up to now?
You are not as frank as Desmond."

He laughed as he looked at me, and then Adelaide called to us that it
was time to leave.

We were among the last; the carriage was waiting. We made our bows to
Mrs. Munster, who complained of not having seen more of us. "You are
a favorite of Mrs. Hepburn's, Miss Morgeson, I am told. She is a
remarkable woman, has great powers." I mentioned my one interview with
her. Guests were going upstairs with smiles, and coming down without,
released from their company manners. We rode home in silence, except
that Adelaide yawned fearfully, and then we toiled up the long stairs,
separating with a tired, "good-night."

I extinguished my candle by dropping my shawl upon it, and groped in
vain for matches over the tops of table and shelf.

"To bed in the dark, then," I said, pulling off my gloves and the
band, from my head, for I felt a tightness in it, and pulled out
the hairpins. But a desire to look in the glass overcame me. I felt
unacquainted with myself, and must see what my aspect indicated just
then.

I crept downstairs, to the dining-room, passed my hands over the
sideboard, the mantel shelf, and took the round of the dinner-table,
but found nothing to light my candle with.

"The fire may not be out in the parlor," I thought; "it can be lighted
there." I ran against the hatstand in the hall, knocking a cane down,
which fell with a loud noise. The parlor door was ajar; the fire was
not out, and Desmond was before it, watching its decay.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The candle," I stammered, confused with the necessity of staying to
have it lighted, and the propriety of retreating in the dark.

"Shall I light it?"

I stepped a little further inside the door and gave it to him. He
grew warm with thrusting it between the bars of the grate, and I grew