ave the honor?"

If he had proposed to waltz over a precipice Sylvia felt as if she could
have accepted, provided there was time to ask a question or two before
the crash came. A moment afterward Mark was surprised to see her
floating round the room on the arm of "the olive-colored party," whom he
recognized at once. His surprise soon changed to pleasure, for his
beauty-loving eye as well as his brotherly pride was gratified as the
whirling couples subsided and the young pair went circling slowly by,
giving to the graceful pastime the enchantment few have skill to lend
it, and making it a spectacle of life-enjoying youth to be remembered by
the lookers on.

"Thank you! I have not enjoyed such a waltz since I left Cuba. It is the
rudest of rude things to say, but to you I may confide it, because you
dance like a Spaniard. The ladies here seem to me as cold as their own
snow, and they make dancing a duty, not a pleasure. They should see
Ottila; she is all grace and fire. I could kill myself dancing with her.
Adam used to say it was like wine to watch her."

"I wish she was here to give us a lesson."

"She is, but will not dance to-night."

"Here!" cried Sylvia, stopping abruptly.

"Why not? Elyott is mad for her, and gave me no peace till I brought
her. She is behind that wall of men; shall I make a passage for you? She
will be glad to talk with you of Adam, and I to show you the handsomest
woman in Habana."

"Let us wait a little; I should be afraid to talk before so many. She is
very beautiful, then."

"You will laugh and call me extravagant, as others do, if I say what I
think; so I will let you judge for yourself. See, your brother stands on
tiptoe to peep at her. Now he goes in, and there he will stay. You do
not like that, perhaps. But Ottila cannot help her beauty, nor the power
she has of making all men love her. I wish she could!"

"She is gifted and accomplished, as well as lovely?" asked Sylvia,
glancing at her companion's gloomy face.

"She is everything a woman should be, and I could shoot Adam for his
cruel neglect."

Gabriel's dark face kindled as he spoke, and Sylvia drearily wished he
would remember how ill-bred it was to tire her with complaints of her
friend, and raptures over his cousin. He seemed to perceive this, turned
a little haughty at her silence, and when he spoke was all the stranger
again.

"This is a contra danza; shall we give the snow-ladies another lesson?
First, may I do