Floods of brilliant gas-light stream out through the windows, illuminating the shaded avenue and blending with the modest light of the full moon outside. Inside the air is heavy with the perfumes of decorations and blooming flowers. Exquisitely made adornings greet one at every turning. In a room opposite to the drawing room, are Jean d'Alberg and Honor Edgeworth, ready to receive their guests: the former looks very imposing in a dress of myrtle green plush and pale blue, brocaded satin, which is most becomingly made, and which, with a pair of diamond earrings and a matronly little head dress, comprises her whole _toilette_. Honor is a marvel of feminine loveliness, her brow as white as marble, and her hair creeping over it in its chestnut waves, has a beautiful effect; there is an enhancing flush of excitement on her cheeks, and her eyes sparkle with unusual brilliancy. Attired in a long flowing dress of white waterplush and satin, from which hang on all sides, little trembling fringes of delicate white pearls, Honor is more like a vision of the supernatural than anything real. Where her costly robe falls in graceful folds to her dainty shoes and sweeps over the floor for yards behind, it is literally covered with natural rosebuds and sprigs of heliotrope that rival with the loveliness of her whom they adorn. Her bare white neck is encircled by strings of tiny pearls, coils of pearls are also twisted in her dark brown hair, making her a breathing goddess of loveliness and wonder, as she stands awaiting her guests' arrivals. "I will have time to run and say a word to dear Mr. Rayne," Honor says, gathering up her handsome skirt and skipping out of the room, she races up the stairs with the recklessness of a child in its morning wrapper and knocks timidly at the door of the temporary sitting-room above. At the faint sound of "come in" she pushes open the door and stands in all her splendid array before Mr. Rayne. "Do you know, I wish so much you could come down stairs," she said techily, "I am lonesome every second for you," and kneeling on one knee beside him, the lovely girl encircled the old man's neck with her bare white arms, caressing him childishly. "Oh, ho!--come now, don't begin to play your little frauds on me, how lonely you are to be sure, looking like a queen in a vision, and ready to break a hundred hearts, be off, you are a dear little humbug, ha ha ha." There was something of the old humor of long ago in the laugh that Mr. Rayne directed into Honor's pretty pink and white ear. "What a voice!" Honor exclaimed in mock horror, "truly, you've quite deafened me with that terrible shout," and she frowned pettishly, putting her little gloved hands sympathisingly to her ears. "Well, that will hold for a while," he answered mischievously, "you need not trouble yourself coming up to hear me again for a while."