Something in her tone, an unconscious echo of the sadness still lurking in her eyes, made Kyrle realize more fully than he had ever done before that her life was certainly not happy. How, indeed, could happiness in any positive degree exist in such an environment as hers? Physical well-being, the comfort and luxury of wealth were hers; but what besides, what love for the tender heart, what sympathy for the aspiring mind? No wonder that the dark, wistful eyes sought the horizon for the magic sail that should bring some meaning into her colorless days. A rush of pity made speech impossible to him for several minutes, and with pity came a longing like a passion to seize and bear her away from the odious people who surrounded and preyed upon her, into the sunshine of such a full and generous existence as her nature craved. It was the force of repression which he had to exert upon himself which made his voice sound almost stern, as he said: “The most of us can do little more than sit on the shore and wait for sails that long delay in their coming. But I fear that what we chiefly look for them to bring is that prosaic fortune which you despise.” “Oh, no,” she answered, quickly, “I am not so foolish nor, as I have said, so ungrateful as to despise wealth. But if I do not rate its power as high as most people seem to do, that is natural. My fortune has really brought me very little personal good. I have often thought that I should have been happier without it. Yet that seems ungrateful; and my family would think it sheer profanity,” she added, with a smile. “I wish,” said Kyrle, with an energy that was fairly startling, “I wish to Heaven that I were a rich man! Shall I tell you what I would do? It is understood that we are in fairyland, you know. I would have a yacht--a very sea-gull for swiftness and beauty--at my bidding, and I would take you--” “Oh, here she is!” said a voice at a little distance--the far from welcome voice of Percy Joscelyn. “Aimée, we are waiting for you.” * * * * *