bird in a breezy grove. Later, light airy music floated through the
rooms, followed by the rhythmic cadence of feet. A thinly clad
shivering little match-girl stopped on her weary tramp to her cellar
and caught glimpses of the scene through the oft-opening door and
between the curtains of the windows. It seemed to her that those
glancing forms were in heaven. Alas for this earthly paradise!

Mr. Fox, with characteristic malice, had managed that Mr. Allen and
perhaps the family should have, as his contribution to the
entertainment, the sickening dread which the news in the afternoon
papers would occasion. As the evening advanced he determined to accept
the invitation and watch the effect. He avoided Mr. Allen, and soon
gathered that Edith and the rest knew nothing of the impending blow.
Edith smiled graciously on him; she felt that, like the sun, she could
shine on all that night. But as, in his insolence, his attentions grew
marked, she soon shook him off by permitting Gus Elliot to claim her
for a waltz.

Mr. Fox glided around, Mephistopheles-like, gloating on the sinister
changes that he would soon occasion. He was to succeed even better
than he dreamed.

The evening went forward with music and dancing, discussing,
disparaging, flirting, and skirmishing, culminating in numbers and
brilliancy as some gorgeous flower might expand; and seemingly it
would have ended by the gay company's rustling departure like the
flower, as the varied colored petals drop away from the stem, had not
an event occurred which was like a rude hand plucking the flower in
its fullest bloom and tearing the petals away in mass.