lightness. What misery the girl's tones conveyed to his ears!

"The ghosts of things that ought to, and should, have been; are not
those the most melancholy?" She pressed a button and flooded the
hallway with light.

His keen eyes roving met nothing but signs of luxury. She led him into
the library and turned on the lights. Not a servant anywhere in sight;
the great house seemed absolutely empty. Not even the usual cat or dog
came romping inquisitively into the room. The shelves of books stirred
his sense of envy; what a den for a literary man to wander in! There
were beautiful marbles, splendid paintings, taste and refinement
visible everywhere.

Warrington stood silently watching the girl as she took off her hat
and carelessly tossed it on the reading-table. The Russian sables were
treated with like indifference. The natural abundance of her hair
amazed him; and what a figure, so elegant, rounded, and mature! The
girl, without noticing him, walked the length of the room and back
several times. Once or twice she made a gesture. It was not addressed
to him, but to some conflict going on in her mind.

He sat down on the edge of a chair and fell to twirling his hat, a
sign that he was not perfectly at his ease.

"I am wondering where I shall begin," she said.

Warrington turned down his coat-collar, and the action seemed to
relieve him of the sense of awkwardness.