Still he looked my way earnestly, and with the fire of admiration in his blue eyes. A young thing sitting in the loge-pew behind me began to turn away her head and hide behind her fan, as if she had anything to do with it. The conceit of some people is astonishing! Cousin E. E.'s little spy-glass lay in her lap. I took it up; I held it to my eyes, and devoured him with one burning glance. His heart seemed leaping to mine through the glass. I knew it. I felt it. Indeed he won't be the first of his noble race that has lost heart and soul to a country girl. The Prince sat down, and when there was a lull in the music, clapped his hands with joy. Oh, my sisters! it is something to have given such supreme pleasure to the Grand Ducal soul. He looked at the play; I looked too. Souls in sympathy have but one thought. I pitied that poor girl-boy with all my heart--my own happiness made me compassionate. How she suffered when that woman with the yellow skirts and the young fellow in boots were singing love to each other! Once she got wild, and dressed herself in a pink silk, and--well, she made one of those toilets that Cousin E. E. understands so well. I was sorry to see her exposing one or two little things that should be a secret with the sex. But she did, and the yellow lady caught her at it, and sung awfully provoking things at her. Well, she just tore off the dress, scattered the lace trimmings about, put on her old duds, and ran away. Then the house got on fire: the whole swarm of people come out helter-skelter, singing to the flames that didn't mind the music more than if it had been buckets full of water. Firemen came running with ladders that nobody climbed, and pails of water, that the firemen carried round and round, in and out, like crazy creatures. I am sure I saw one fellow, with a white pail, pitch through the same window into the red-hot flames fifty times. The poor girl-boy, being desperate, just pitched in, determined to burn herself, while the woman in yellow and the man in boots looked on. This went right to the cruel man's heart; he jumped in after her, carried her away from the devouring flames, and fell in love with her like a man. Of course, being a decent kind of a fellow, he couldn't keep on singing out his love to both girls at once with enthusiasm, and began to neglect the yellow girl in a way that brought tears into her voice whenever she came pleading to him under the window--which she did, not having the pride of all the Frost family in her veins. Of course this did no good; men never come back to women that whine. The girl--for she had given up boys' clothes--had got him safe; he didn't care a chestnut-burr for all the other's singing, but took to the little vagabondess with all his heart and soul.