llowed him to go. The slip of paper remained upon the
table unopened.

* * * * *

That night as Paula lay slumbering on her pillow, a sound passed through
the house. It was like a quick irrepressible cry of desolation, and the
poor child hearing it, started, thinking her name had been called. But
when she listened, all was still, and believing she had dreamed, she
turned her face upon her pillow, and softly murmuring the name that was
dearest to her in all the world, fell again into a peaceful sleep.

But he whose voice had uttered that cry in the dreary emptiness of the
great parlors below, slept not.

XXXVI.

MORNING.

"Two maidens by one fountain's joyous brink,
And one was sad and one had cause for sadness."

Cicely Stuyvesant waiting for her father at the foot of the stairs, on
the morning after these occurrences, was a pretty and a touching
spectacle. She had not slept very well the night before, and her brow
showed signs of trouble and so did her trembling lips. She held in her
hand a letter which she twirled about with very unsteady fingers. The
morning was bright, but she did not seem to observe it; the air was
fresh, but it did not seem to invigorate her. A rose-leaf of care lay on
the tremulous waters of her soul, and her sensitive nature thrilled
under it.

"Why does he not come?" she whispered, looking again at the letter's
inscription.

It was in Mr. Sylvester's handwriting, and ought not to have occasioned
her any uneasiness, but her father had intimated a wish the night
before, that she should not come down into the parlor if Bertram called,
and--Her thoughts paused there, but she was anxious about the letter and
wished her father would hasten.

Let us look at the little lady. She had been so bright and lovesome
yesterday at this time. Never a maiden in all this great city of ours
had shown a sweeter or more etherial smile. At once radiant and
reserved, she flashed on the eye and trembled from the grasp like some
dainty tropical creature as yet unused to our stranger clime. Her father
had surveyed her with satisfaction, and her lover--oh, that we were all
young again to experience that leap of the heart with which youth meets
and recognizes the sweet perfections of the woman it adores! But a mist
had obscured the radiance of her aspect, and she looks very sad as she
stands in her father's hall this morning, leaning her cheek against the
baniste