She played off all her arts in vain, he seemed unconscious, and devoted himself entirely to Effie. At first she was so occupied with securing the two other prizes she overlooked his delinquency, but when certain of them, she was piqued into accomplishing a conquest of him likewise. I did not think she would be successful, and amused myself by quietly watching her manoeuvres. One bright moonlight evening the gentlemen rowed us up the mill-stream, and as we returned we landed at our favorite oak. The waters, swelled by recent rains, came dashing and tumbling along in mimic billows; the moon beamed down a heavenly radiance, and as the little wavelets broke against the shore, they glittered like molten silver, covering the wild blossoms with dazzling fairy gems. Kate's two lovers were talking and walking with Mrs. Morris and Effie along the shore. Lucien, Kate, and I, remained on a little bank that rose abruptly from the water. She did, indeed, look most bewitchingly beautiful; her soft, white dress, bound at the waist by a flowing ribbon, floated in graceful folds around her; her lovely neck, shoulders and arms, were quite uncovered, and her rich, dark hair fell in loose, long curls, making picturesque shadows in the moonlight. She could act the inspired enthusiast to perfection; and what our Effie really was, she could affect most admirably. She seemed unconscious of our presence; indeed, I do not think she thought I was near her, and, as if involuntarily, she burst out into one of her affected rhapsodies, her eyes beamed brightly, and she expressed her feelings most rapturously, concluding with repeating, in low, earnest, half trembling tones, some lines of Lucien's she had taken from my Scrap Book, descriptive of the very scene before her, written the preceding summer for Effie, after a moonlight ramble together. The poetry was quite impassioned; and I heard Kate murmur with a sigh, as she turned away after concluding her quotation, as if sick at heart, "Ah! I would give years of brilliant success for one hour of devotion from such a lover."