r.'" And she turned to assist Ona, who had arisen from her
couch and was now absorbed in the intricacies of an uncommonly elaborate
toilet.

"Those men did not mention any names?" suddenly queried that lady,
looking with an expression of careful anxiety, at the twist of her back
hair, in the small hand-mirror she held over her shoulder.

"No," said Paula, dropping a red rose into the blonde locks she was so
carefully arranging. "He expressly said he did not know the name of the
person to whom he alluded. It was a strange conversation for me to
overhear, was it not?" she remarked, happy to have interested her cousin
in anything out of the domains of fashion.

"I don't know--certainly--of course--" returned Mrs. Sylvester with some
incoherence. "Do you think red looks as well with this black as the
lavender would do?" she rambled on in her lightest tone, pulling out a
box of feathers.

Paula gave her a little wistful glance of disappointment and decided in
favor of the lavender.

"I am bound to look well to-night if I never do so again," said Ona.
They were all going to a public reception at which a foreign lord was
expected to be present. "How fortunate I am to have a perfect little
hairdresser in my own family, without being obliged to send for some
gossipy, fussy old Madame with her stories of how such and such a one
looked when dressed for the Grand Duke's ball, or how Mrs. So and So
always gave her more than her price because she rolled up puffs so
exquisitely." And stopping to aid the deft girl in substituting the
lavender feather for the red rose in her hair--she forgot to ask any
more questions.

* * * * *

"Ona," remarked her husband, coming into the room on his way down to
dinner--Mrs. Sylvester never dined when she was going to any grand
entertainment; it made her look flushed she said--"I am not in the habit
of troubling you about your family matters, but have you heard from your
father of late?"

Mrs. Sylvester turned from her jewel-casket and calmly surveyed his
face. It was fixed and formal, the face he turned to his servants and
sometimes--to his wife. "No," said she, with a light little gesture as
though she were speaking of the most trivial matter. "In one respect at
least, papa is like an angel, his visits are few and far between."

Mr. Sylvester's eye-brows drew heavily together. For a man with a smile
of strange sweetness, he could sometimes look very forbiddi