The rich color mounted to Cora’s cheeks, and her dark eyes flashed with pleasure as, with a frank expression of joyful greeting, she extended her hand to her old playmate. They had not met since Harry had been summoned home, years before, to attend the death-bed of his mother. Shortly after that sad event he had entered the navy, and had passed from boyhood to manhood. He often thought of the little West Indian, Cora Neill. Her sweet winning ways would come before him in his lonely night-watches, and her graceful, floating form would be recalled to his memory, when in southern climes he would bear through the voluptuous waltz some brilliant maiden. But only as _little_ Cora had he thought of her; and when he saw her at Madame Chalon’s ball, so dazzlingly beautiful, instead of renewing instantly, as was his intention, their old friendship, he hesitated, and at last called on the Madame to present him; but Cora’s frank manner threw aside all reserve, and they were in a little while waltzing and talking, as they had years before at Mons. Dunoyer’s _reunions_. The following day found him a visiter at the Madame’s; and as his sisters had been favorite pupils of hers, he was greeted with a pleasant welcome. It was Cora’s first winter in society, and under Madame Chalon’s _chaperonage_ she frequented all the gay resorts of the fashionable world. Beautiful, and a reputed heiress, of course, she was a belle; but prominent amongst her admirers was the young lieutenant. It was not long before they made the mutual discovery of their love for each other—and they both yielded themselves without reflection to this first love. They dreamed only of happiness, and fondly imagined no clouds could hang over their future. Madame Chalon was finally consulted by both, and she enclosed in a letter of her own, Harry Belton’s application for Cora’s hand to Mr. Neill. The hours floated joyously by, and Cora thought life increased in beauty daily, when all her rosy dreams were dispelled, and she rendered miserable by the receipt of three letters from her father. One contained a brief, polite dismissal to Mr. Belton. The second was a civil acknowledgment to Madame Chalon for her kind care of his daughter for so many years, and a request that she should prepare Cora to accompany some West India friends, then traveling in the United States, who, in the following month, were to return to Cuba, and would take charge of her. The third was a letter to Cora—not a severe, upbraiding one, but one filled with sorrowful lovingness and fatherly entreaties. He pictured his solitary life since her mother’s death; how earnestly he had devoted himself to business, that he might accumulate enough to lavish freely on her, his only one, every luxury, when she should be old enough to take her mother’s place. He described the day-dreams he had indulged of an old age that was to be cheered by his only child.