sang Adèle, as she sprang from her seat and glided to an old piano that stood in one corner of the room, and which was sometimes used for little dancing parties. She hastily opened it, struck a few notes, and called Christiane to try it more thoroughly. Meantime Marquard had crossed over to Mohr and cordially shaken hands with him; Edwin and Toinette also rose, lights and a fresh bottle of wine were brought in, and amidst the bustle of coming and going Christiane hastily ran her hands over the keys, and commenced Weber's "Invitation to the waltz." The room became quiet. Edwin had carried two chairs into a window recess, which was illumined by the last crimson rays of the autumnal sunlight. Without a word from him, Toinette took one chair and he sat down beside her. He had scarcely spoken to her at the table, but he had listened to her every word, and little as he appeared to look at her, had often turned his eyes with delight upon the delicate profile and black lashes. But now as she gazed out at the bare treetops, bathed in the crimson glow, with her head and shoulders likewise steeped in the radiance of the sunset, her lips parted as if her very soul were absorbed in the lingering beauties of the day, he forgot his self control, and gazed steadily into her face. The room was quite dark; two candles only illumined the table still crowded with the empty bottles and half filled glasses, and lighted up Marquard's pleasant features, as he sat alone smoking his cigar and looking intently through the round glasses of his gold spectacles at the piano. Mohr had thrown himself down on a stool beside the musician, Adèle was tripping lightly up and down the room, singing to herself in a low tone and sometimes with a coquettish gesture throwing at her friend, who continued to smoke phlegmatically, a grape, from the cluster which, in bacchanalian fashion she had fastened to the gold circlet on her head. "You have been very charming to-day," Edwin whispered to Toinette. "I thank you for the conquests you have made of my friends. I'm vain enough to think you did it partly for my sake. If Balder had only seen you!" "Why?" "Because I always think of him, whenever anything pleases me; because I wish him to share my pleasures with me. Have you never had the same feeling toward your sisters?" "I would gladly have felt it, but I never could succeed. Each thought only of herself, her few miserable trinkets, her lovers, and the next casino-ball. I really think sisters are scarcely capable of what you call brotherly, love. But hush; she's beginning to sing. Who would have supposed there was so much music in the queer little doll!" In fact a flood of melody now filled the room, as Adèle sang Pergolese's morning serenade: "Tre giorni son che Nina Al letto se ne sta."