r words well chosen, her expressions always poetical and full
of grace; no one meeting her then could have told that she had spent her
life in the rural shades of Rashleigh.

New beauty came to her with this development of mind; new, spiritual,
poetical loveliness; and Lord Chandos, looking at his peerless young
wife, felt always quite confident that when his mother saw her all would
be well--she would be proud of her.

While Leone seemed to have gone straight to heaven, she could not
realize that this was the same life she rebelled against with such
fierce rebellion. Now the days were not long enough to hold in them all
the happiness that fell to her share. The birds woke her with their
singing; the sun with its shining; another beautiful day had dawned for
her--a day that was full of beauty and love. They passed like a dream.

She took breakfast always with her husband; perhaps the happiest hour of
the day was that. The windows of the pretty breakfast-room looked over a
wilderness of flowers; the windows were always open. The soft, sweet
summer air came in, parting the long, white curtains, bringing with it
the breath of roses and the odor of a hundred flowers.

She looked as fresh and fair as the morning itself. Lord Chandos
wondered more and more at her radiant loveliness. Her soul was awake
now, and looked out of her dark eyes into the world she found so
beautiful.

Then Lord Chandos went up to town for a few hours, while Leone took her
different lessons and studied. They met again at lunch, and they spent
the afternoon out-of-doors. An ideal life--an idyl in itself. Leone,
while she lived, retained a vivid remembrance of those afternoons, of
the shade of the deep woods, of the ripple of the river through the
green banks, of the valleys where flowers and ferns grew, of the long
alleys where the pleasant shade made a perfect paradise. She remembered
them--the golden glow, the fragrance, the music of them, remained with
her until she died. All the most pleasant times of our lives are dreams.

Then they dined together; and in the evening Lord Chandos took his
beautiful young wife to the opera or the play, to concert or lecture.

"As soon as I am of age," he would say, "I shall take you on the
Continent; there is no education we get like that we get by traveling
one year on the Continent; and you will be at home on every subject,
Leone," he would say; and Leone longed for the time to come.

"When I am of age,"