This was why Honor looked so indifferent to the sensation she created this evening at the Bellemare's, gliding through the ball-room on the arm of the handsomest man present, but for all that her mind was not lazy, she was thinking deeply enough the while, leaning on the stalwart shoulder of Vivian Standish, drinking in the suggestive strains of the music to which they danced. Honor was also yielding to the influence of memory that had been awakened within her, that memory that pensively turned backwards the unforgotten pages of her past, filling her with a sad discontent, that soon betrayed itself in the wearied expression of impatience which stole into her eyes and over her whole face, and while so many girls around her, could have hated her for her luck, she sighed heavily under her rich brocades, and whispered to herself, "others look so completely happy, why need things be so different with me?" Presently the arm that encircled her slender waist released its pressure, and a sad earnest voice, said in a half anxious tone, into the pretty pink ear: "Why do you look so worried and fretful, are you tired?" "No--yes--a little," she answered wearily. "Let me get you some refreshment," was the solicitous rejoinder. "Come in here, Miss Edgeworth, see how cosy and appropriate it looks." Mechanically she yielded, and on the arm of her admirer passed into a spot which was a veritable artificial summer. It may not seem consistent with the rest of Honor Edgeworth's character, to say that, though defiant and independent, with regard to every other influence in life, she found herself unable to battle against the strange and unpleasant feeling, that invariably filled her in the company of this man. She had read and heard of "will power," and of the strength of the moral character asserting itself, despite the most gigantic efforts on the part of the victim, and though she was not inclined to raise this petty instance to the dignity of such wonderful manifestations, it yet savored of mystery to her, and thrust a repulsive consciousness of her own moral weakness upon her.