"Jenks-Smith said it didn't look natural, and I'd surely be spotted, but I said I'd like to see mere hired men try to tell a lady how stout or how thin she had a right to be. Almost too gorgeous for a professor's wife? Not a bit; Miss Lavinia, you're not advanced. Nobody knows nowadays, at the launching, how anybody's going to turn out,--whether they'll sink or float,--and diamonds are an all-right cargo, anyway. If she moves up, she can wear 'em, if she slumps, she can sell 'em, and if she just drifts along on the level, she can look at 'em once in a time. No, my dear, diamonds are a consolation that no woman can afford to miss." Considering her usual careless good nature, it seemed to me that Mrs. Jenks-Smith was very fussy during the luncheon, ill at ease, and strangely anxious to hurry the departure of Sylvia and Horace. The guests, all but ourselves, left first, then Mr. Latham, who went upstairs to take leave of his daughter alone. When Sylvia finally came down, her colour had returned and she looked her radiant self again as she kissed Miss Lavinia and Mrs. Bradford, and went down the steps holding Horace, not by the arm, but clinging to his hand. As the carriage disappeared around the bend of the road, and as we stood looking at one another, feeling for a second the reaction and the sense of an empty house that always follows the going of a bride, the Lady of the Bluffs sank into a deep chair exclaiming, "Thank the Lord, they've gone!" "Why, what is it? Are you ill?" cried father, who was just leaving, coming quickly to her side. "It's this. I wanted to get her started north ahead of it. When she comes back she won't care so much," she replied incoherently, pulling a scrap of a morning newspaper from her card-case and holding it out at random for the nearest one to take. Father caught it from her hand, and going to the window, read aloud in slow, precisive accents of astonishment:-- "AN EVENT OF INTEREST TO NEW YORK SOCIETY. "(SPECIAL CABLE TO NEW YORK HERALD.) "LONDON, Aug. 29.--Yesterday the marriage took place of Montgomery Bell to Mrs. Vivian Latham, both of New York. The wedding, at the registrar's and quite informal, was followed by a breakfast given the couple by Mrs. Center--who chanced, with several other intimates of the American colony, to be in the city en route to the German baths,--at her apartment which she always keeps in readiness for occupancy. Mr. Bell, who is a member of all the best clubs, is known socially as the 'Indispensable.' Mr. and Mrs. Bell will return to New York in November and open their magnificent house at Central Park East with a series of the delightful entertainments which they both so well know how to render unique." XIV THE OASIS _September_ 8. Three lowering days of wind and rain, and Summer, after a feigned departure, has returned to complete her task of perfecting.