"He does not look inconsolable! I tell you what my notion is: he may love his wife--of course he does--but he admires her sister more. See how he watches her! Mrs. Tomes told me that she was standing near him the first time Mrs. Hammond waltzed, and that he seemed real worried. When the set was through, she came to look for a seat, and he got one for her. As she took it, he said something to her which Mrs. Tomes could not hear, but she laughed out in his face as saucy as could be, and said: 'Oh, I am learning when I am in Rome to do as Romans do! Doesn't my elder sister set the example?'" "He could say nothing then," said Mrs. Greyling. "Those girls played their cards well. The Hunts have very little, if anything, besides the father's salary, and the family was very obscure." Mrs. Greyling's paternal progenitor was an opulent soap-boiler, who was not ashamed, during her childhood, to drive an unsavory cart from one kitchen door to another. But he counted his thousands now by the hundred, and his children ranked, as a consequence, among the "upper ten." She continued her charitable remarks: "Somehow the old lady contrived to keep up the appearance of wealth, and married both daughters off before their second season. Mr. Benson is reputed to be rich; but for that matter these Southern planters are all said to be rolling in money. Mr. Hammond is certainly making money. Mr. Greyling says he is a splendid business man." "He sailed for Europe a week ago, you know." "Yes; and since then madame has been the belle of the ball. The old story--'When the cat is away, the mice will play.'" "Sarah," said Philip, an hour later, "will you walk on the balcony with me? You are heated, and the air is balmy as Georgian breezes. It will do you good." "Are you going to scold me?" she asked, archly, before she would take his arm. "No. I have no right to do it if I had the disposition." There was no moon; but the sky was strewed thickly with stars, and the white foam of the surf caught and held tremulously the sparkles from the bright watchers above. Philip did not appear disposed to converse, and Sarah waited for him to begin. Meanwhile, they strolled on and on, until the murmur of the ocean was louder than the music of the saloon band. The sea moaned to the stars, as it had done to the sunless July heavens on that day so memorable in the history of one of the pair--the day of shipwreck stories and a real shipwreck--none the less disastrous, that the treasures and their loss were hidden from all but the bereaved one.