devoted to a young lady of the party.” After that Connie drooped more and more, until by the time they left Interlaken for Geneva her life seemed to have gone from her, leaving her a pale, silent girl, with a hopeless look in her eyes pitiful to see in one so young. Absolutely true herself, and a child in many things, owing to her convent training, it was hard to imagine deception in any one whom she trusted, and doubly so in him who, if he were alive and well, had deceived her cruelly. She might write to him, for she knew his address, but she was too proud to do that. If he had ceased to care for her, she would make no sign and bear her pain as best she could. Geneva was a little diversion, as she was never tired of the beautiful lake, or of watching the lights and shadows of Mt. Blanc in the distance. She would like to have stayed there all the autumn, but her aunt said no,—her health required the balmy air of Genoa, where Costello had invited them to stop at his palace. “Oh, Auntie,” Connie cried in dismay, “you surely will not go there!” “Why not?” was the sharp question, and Connie replied: “It does not seem proper for two lone women to become the guests of Count Costello, when there are so many hotels and pensions in Genoa.” “I shall not go as his guest, but as his wife,” was the rejoinder. “His wife! You? Oh, Auntie!” and Connie sprang to her feet, and then sank pale and trembling into her chair. She knew her aunt’s fondness for titles, and had seen her growing intimacy with the count, but had never quite believed that it would come to this, that her proud aunt would take one whom she had refused. It was strange, but like many another foolish woman, Mrs. Hart had been won by the glamor of a title and the oily tongue of the Italian, who boasted connection with some of the first families in Italy and Florence. He had a villa in the latter city and a palace in Genoa, and when his wife tired of these, there was her house in New York, where they could spend a portion of each year. Mrs. Hart was a handsome, well-preserved woman of forty-five. The count was only a year or two her junior. He had no bad habits that she knew of, and was very good tempered. He had been devoted to Connie, but had seen the folly of aspiring to the hand of one so young. Mrs. Hart, in her maturity, would suit him better, and be an ornament in the high circles to which he would introduce her. These and similar arguments prevailed, and after yards and yards of “red tape,” the marriage ceremony was performed in Geneva some time in October, and Mrs. Hart was the Countess Costello.