"So you would not, as a rule, Miss Herbert, commend the practice of married women waltzing with other men than their husbands?" She drops her eyes with a pretty air of mingled confusion and earnestness. "Perhaps you will call me prudish," she says, "or perhaps I may be actuated by the more ignoble passion of jealousy; but I have always felt that were I a man it would be insupportable shame and agony for me to see my wife, whom I loved and revered as a being little lower than an angel, whirled about a common ball-room in the arms of another, while the gaping public nodded and winked." She saw a look of shame and pain cross his face as his eyes followed the white figure floating round the room in the clasp of Byron Penn's arms. "I suppose there are not many women who feel as strongly on that subject as you do," he says, slowly. "Oh, dear, no, nor men either, or they would not permit their wives such license," is the quick reply. The waltz-music ceases with a bewildering crash of melody, and some one comes up and claims Felise for the next german. She floats away airily as a rose-colored cloud on her partner's arm, and leaves her victim alone. He stands there quite silently a little, seeming lost in troubled thought, then goes to seek his wife. He finds her the center of an admiring circle, the young poet, Byron Penn, conspicuous among them. With a slight apology to his friends he offers his arm and leads her away from the throng out to the long moonlighted piazzas. "Shall I find you a seat or will you promenade?" he inquires politely. "Oh! promenade, by all means," she answers a little constrainedly. They take a few turns up and down the long piazza, Mrs. Carlyle's long robe trailing after her with a silken "swish, swish;" she makes no observation, does not even look at him. Her large eyes wander away and linger upon the sea that is glorious beyond description with the radiance of the full moon mirrored in its deeps, and making a pathway of light across its restless waves. She thinks vaguely that the golden streets of the celestial city must look like that. "I hope you are enjoying the ball?" her liege lord observes interrogatively. "As much as I ever enjoy anything," she returns listlessly. "Which means----" he says, quickly, then checks himself abruptly. She finishes his sentence with a dreary little sigh: "That I do not enjoy anything very much!" He looks down at her, wondering at the unusual pathos of her tone, and sees a face to match the voice. Moonlight they say brings out the true expression of the soul upon the features. If that be true then Bonnibel Carlyle bears a sad and weary soul within her breast. The white face looks very _spirituelle_ in the soft, mystical light, and the delicate lips are set in a line of pain. No man likes to see his wife unhappy. It is a reflection upon himself. It is his first duty to secure her happiness. Colonel Carlyle is nettled, and says, half querulously: