the dark-blue ground of which was enlivened by a Grecian pattern of
gold and scarlet; her unbound hair draped her shoulders, and framed
her arch face, as she threaded the bronze ripples with her fingers.
She looked contented, restful, complacent in herself and her
belongings--one whom Time had touched lovingly as he swept by, and
whom sorrow had forgotten.

"Not asleep yet!" was her husband's exclamation, entering before
anything further passed between the two women; and when his sister
started up, with an apology for being found there at so late an
hour, he added, more reproachfully than he ever spoke to his wife,
"You should not have kept her up, Mabel! Her strength has been too
much taxed already to-night. I hoped and believed that she had been
in bed and asleep for an hour."

"Don't blame her!" said Mrs. Aylett, hastily. "I called her in as
she was proceeding to bed in the most decorous manner possible. I
may as well own the truth of my weakness. I was nervously
wakeful--the effect, in part, of the ultra-strong coffee Dr. Ritchie
advised me to drink at supper-tine--in part, of the silly sensation
I got up to terrify my friends. So I maneuvered to secure a fireside
companion until you should have dispatched your cigar. Gossip is as
pleasant a sedative to ladies as is a prime Havana to their lords."

"And what is the latest morceau?" inquired Mr Aylett, indulgently,
when Mabel had gone.

He was standing by his wife's chair, and she leaned her head against
him, her bright eyes uplifted to his, her hair falling in a long,
burnished fringe over his arm--a fond, sparkling siren, whom no man,