be thoroughly
satisfied at last. The consideration which one receives as the wife of
the president of the Madison bank is certainly very gratifying. If I had
known I would feel such a change in the social atmosphere, I would have
advocated Edward's dropping speculation long ago. Beauty and wealth may
help one up the social ladder, but only a settled position such as he
has now obtained, can carry you safely over the top. I feel at last as
if we had reached the pinnacle of my ambition and had seen the ladder by
which we mounted thrown down behind us. If I get my costume from Worth
in time, I shall give a German next month."

Paula from her stand at the door--for some minutes she had been
endeavoring to escape to her room--surveyed her cousin in wonder. She
had never seen her look as she did at that moment. Any one who speaks
from the heart, acquires a certain eloquence, and Ona for once was
speaking from her heart. The unwonted emotion made her cheeks burn, and
even her diamonds, ten thousand dollars worth as we have heard declared,
were less brilliant than her eyes. Paula left her station on the
door-sill and glided rapidly back to her side. "O Ona," said she, "if
you would only look like that when--" she paused, what right had she to
venture upon giving lessons to her benefactor.

"When what?" inquired the other, subsiding at once into her naturally
languid manner. Then with a total forgetfulness of the momentary
curiosity that had prompted the question, held out her head to the
attendant Sarah, with a command to be relieved of her ornaments. Paula
sighed and hastened to her room. She could not bring herself to mention
her anxiety in regard to the still absent master of the house, to this
lazily-smiling thoroughly satisfied woman.

But none the less did she herself sit up in the moonlight, listening
with bended head for the sound of his step on the walk beneath. She
could not sleep while he was absent; and yet the thoughts that disturbed
her and kept her from her virgin pillow could not have been entirely for
him, or why those wandering smiles that ever and anon passed flitting
over her cheek, awakening the dimples that slumbered there, until she
looked more like a dreamy picture of delight than a wakeful vision of
apprehension. Not entirely for him--yet when somewhere towards three
o'clock, she heard the long delayed step upon the stoop, she started up
with eager eyes and a nervous gesture that sufficiently betraye