d
beneath the camellia.

As I watched her from my loop-holes I could tell that Aurelia was
going over all this scene in her mind. While her eyes were fixed upon
the stage, she recalled every word and gesture of Gerald's. Yet, his
reproaches, his just complaints, hardly weighed upon her now. She was
looking on the vacant seat beside her, and wondering when Frank would
come to take it.

But "Lilly," the light-haired one, her thoughts were rushing back to
the wild, gay polkas of the morning. Now by Aurelia's side, now away
again; she had danced continually till the last moment, and when they
came to tell her the carriage was ready, and she must come away, she
had fainted.

It was as she was going up-stairs into the drawing-room, just before
she and her sisters made their grand entree, that Lilly had heard that
"Cousin Joe" had not come home in the vessel with Gerald Lawson. He
had gone to Europe by the overland route, and wild, mad fellow that he
was, had determined to join the Russian troops in the Crimea.

"And be shot there for his pains," Frank Leslie added carelessly.

Cousin Joe hadn't come home! He didn't care to come home! He was going
to be shot!

She could think of nothing else. She could not keep still; she could
not talk placidly like the rest; she must dance, and dance wildly and
passionately.

But a moment of reaction came. When the last strain of music had died
away, all power of self-control had died away, too. No wonder that she
had fainted! More wonder that she could recover herself; could resist
her mother's entreaties, after all that dancing, to spare herself and
stay from the opera.

Here she was, outwardly lively and radiant, chatting with Lieutenant
Preston, inwardly chafed at all this constraint, and wondering how it
was Cousin Joe could stay so long away.

By her side sat Annette. It was the report that she had been sent
south last winter to break up a desperate flirtation she was carrying
on. However it was, I had always fancied Annette more than either of
the other sisters. She had apparently less of our northern reserve,
whether for good or evil, than the rest. She said just what she was
thinking; danced when she liked; was insolent when she pleased.

To-night she seemed to me fretful. She was angry with Lilly for
talking with Lieutenant Preston; and, indeed, I must not, in honor,
reveal all I read in Annette's mind. If I found there her opinion of
me; if, on the whole, it lowered