the lamp on Sylvia's closed eyes and marble features. "Well, my
conscience is clear. I did but look into this delicate creature's heart;
and with the pure fantasies that I found there, I made what seemed a
man,--and the delusive shadow has wiled her away to Shadow-land, and
vanished there! It is no new tale. Many a sweet maid has shared the lot
of poor Sylph Etherege!"

"And now, Edgar Vaughan," said Mrs. Grosvenor, as Sylvia's heart began
faintly to throb again, "now try, in good earnest, to win back her love
from the phantom which you conjured up. If you succeed, she will be the
better, her whole life long, for the lesson we have given her."

Whether the result of the lesson corresponded with Mrs. Grosvenor's
hopes, may be gathered from the closing scene of our story. It had been
made known to the fashionable world that Edgar Vaughan had returned from
France, and, under the assumed name of Edward Hamilton, had won the
affections of the lovely girl to whom he had been affianced in his
boyhood. The nuptials were to take place at an early date. One evening,
before the day of anticipated bliss arrived, Edgar Vaughan entered Mrs.
Grosvenor's drawing-room, where he found that lady and Sylph Etherege.

"Only that Sylvia makes no complaint," remarked Mrs. Grosvenor, "I should
apprehend that the town air is ill-suited to her constitution. She was
always, indeed, a delicate creature; but now she is a mere gossamer. Do
but look at her! Did you ever imagine anything so fragile?"

Vaughan was already attentively observing his mistress, who sat in a
shadowy and moonlighted recess of the room, with her dreamy eyes fixed
steadfastly upon his own. The bough of a tree was waving before the
window, and sometimes enveloped her in the gloom of its shadow, into