offering and sacrifice, Selina stood alone.

And yet--not quite alone! For, as the fire was roaring at its
best, certain stars stepped delicately forth on the surface of
the immensity above, and peered down doubtfully--with wonder at
first, then with interest, then with recognition, with a start of
glad surprise. THEY at least knew all about it, THEY
understood. Among THEM the Name was a daily familiar
word; his story was a part of the music to which they swung,
himself was their fellow and their mate and comrade. So they
peeped, and winked, and peeped again, and called to their laggard
brothers to come quick and see.


. . . . . . .

"The best of life is but intoxication;" and Selina, who during
her brief inebriation had lived in an ecstasy as golden as our
drab existence affords, had to experience the inevitable
bitterness of awakening sobriety, when the dying down of the
flames into sullen embers coincided with the frenzied entrance of
Aunt Eliza on the scene. It was not so much that she was at once
and forever disrated, broke, sent before the mast, and branded as
one on whom no reliance could be placed, even with Edward safe at
school, and myself under the distant vigilance of an aunt; that
her pocket money was stopped indefinitely, and her new Church
Service, the pride of her last birthday, removed from her own
custody and placed under the control of a Trust. She sorrowed
rather because she had dragged poor Harold, against his better
judgment, into a most horrible scrape, and moreover because, when