And she smiled as she said it. Why did she smile? It was just as we parted, and mark the result. The moment I suspected that the flirtation was not all on one side, I discovered--beloved budding Flirt, male or female, of this summer, you will also discover the same thing in similar cases--that I was seriously in love. Now that I fancied there was no reason to blind my eyes to the fact, I stared directly upon it. We went into the hall. It was a wild and melancholy dance that we danced. There was a frenzy in my movements, for I knew that I was clasping for the last time the woman for whom my admiring and tender compassion was by her revelation of superiority to loving me, suddenly kindled into devotion! She was very beautiful--at least, she was so to me, and I could not but mark a kind of triumph in her air, which did not much perplex, but overwhelmed me. At length she proposed stepping out upon the piazza, and then we walked in the cool moonlight while I poured out to her the overflowing enthusiasm of my passion. Lulu listened patiently, and then she said: "My good friend (fancy such a beginning in answer to a declaration), you have much to learn. I thought from what you said this afternoon that you were profoundly acquainted with the mystery of Watering-Place life. You remember you delivered a very polished disquisition on the subject to me--to a woman who, you had every reason to suppose, was deeply in love with you. My good sir, a Watering-Place passion, you ought to know, is an affair of sunshine, music, and flowers. We meet upon a mountain-top, and enjoy ourselves, then part with longing and regret." Here she paused a moment, and my knees smote together. "You are a very young man, with very much to learn, and if you mean to make the tour of the Watering-Places during this or any summer, you must understand this; and, as Herbert tells me you were a very moving valedictorian this year, this shall be my moving valedictory to you, for I leave to-morrow--in all summer encounters of the heart or head, at any of the leisure resorts where there is nothing to do but to do nothing, never forget that _all baggage is at the risk of the owner_." And so saying, Lulu slipped her arm from mine, glided up the stairs into the hall, and the next moment was floating down the room to a fragrant strain of Strauss. I, young reader, remained a few moments bewildered in the moonlight, and the next morning naturally left Saratoga. I am meditating whether to go to Newport; but I am sure Lulu is there. Let me advise you, meanwhile, to beware, let me urge you to adapt the old proverb to the meridian of a Watering-Place by reversing it--that "whoever goes out to find a kingdom may return an ass." THE MIDNIGHT MASS. AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.