precious toys lying here and there about the room,--toys very
precious, but placed there not because of their price, but because of
their beauty. Phineas already knew enough of the art of living to be
aware that the woman who had made that room what it was, had charms
to add a beauty to everything she touched. What would such a life as
his want, if graced by such a companion,--such a life as his might
be, if the means which were hers were at his command? It would want
one thing, he thought,--the self-respect which he would lose if he
were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at
home in Ireland.

In a very few minutes Madame Goesler was with him, and, though he did
not think about it, he perceived that she was bright in her apparel,
that her hair was as soft as care could make it, and that every charm
belonging to her had been brought into use for his gratification. He
almost told himself that he was there in order that he might ask to
have all those charms bestowed upon himself. He did not know who had
lately come to Park Lane and been a suppliant for the possession of
those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more
precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart
of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the
lady's feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the
coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize.

"I am so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, as she gave him
her hand. "I was an owl not to be ready for you when you told me that
you would come."

"No;--but a bird of paradise to come to me so sweetly, and at an
hour when all the other birds refuse to show the feather of a single
wing."

"And you,--you feel like a naughty boy, do you not, in thus coming
out on a Sunday morning?"

"Do you feel like a naughty girl?"

"Yes;--just a little so. I do not know that I should care for
everybody to hear that I received visitors,--or worse still, a
visitor,--at this hour on this day. But then it is so pleasant to
feel oneself to be naughty! There is a Bohemian flavour of picnic
about it which, though it does not come up to the rich gusto of
real wickedness, makes one fancy that one is on the border of that
delightful region in which there is none of the constraint of
custom,--where men and women say what they like, and do what they
like."

"It is pleasant enough to be on the borders," sa