“Can't you see, Basil, what a very flattering way it is?” she asked of her husband, when, after parting with their friends for the night, she tried to explain the character to him. “Of course no art could equal such a natural gift; for that kind of belief in your good-nature and sympathy makes you feel worthy of it, don't you know; and so you can't help being good-natured and sympathetic. This Miss Ellison, why, I can tell you, I shouldn't be ashamed of her anywhere.” By anywhere Isabel meant Boston, and she went on to praise the young lady's intelligence and refinement, with those expressions of surprise at the existence of civilization in a westerner which westerners find it so hard to receive graciously. Happily, Miss Ellison had not to hear them. “The reason she happened to come with only two dresses is, she lives so near Niagara that she could come for one day, and go back the next. The colonel's her cousin, and he and his wife go East every year, and they asked her this time to see Niagara with them. She told me all over again what we eavesdropped so shamefully in the hotel parlor;--and I don't know whether she was better pleased with the prospect of what's before her, or with the notion of making the journey in this original way. She didn't force her confidence upon me, any more than she tried to withhold it. We got to talking in the most natural manner; and she seemed to tell these things about herself because they amused her and she liked me. I had been saying how my trunk got left behind once on the French side of Mont Cenis, and I had to wear aunt's things at Turin till it could be sent for.” “Well, I don't see but Miss Ellison could describe you to her friends very much as you've described her to me,” said Basil. “How did these mutual confidences begin? Whose trustfulness first flattered the other's? What else did you tell about yourself?” “I said we were on our wedding journey,” guiltily admitted Isabel. “O, you did!” “Why, dearest! I wanted to know, for once, you see, whether we seemed honeymoon-struck.” “And do we?” “No,” came the answer, somewhat ruefully. “Perhaps, Basil,” she added, “we've been a little too successful in disguising our bridal character. Do you know,” she continued, looking him anxiously in the face, “this Miss Ellison took me at first for--your sister!” Basil broke forth in outrageous laughter. “One more such victory,” he said, “and we are undone;” and he laughed again, immoderately. “How sad is the fruition of human wishes! There's nothing, after all, like a good thorough failure for making people happy.” Isabel did not listen to him. Safe in a dim corner of the deserted saloon, she seized him in a vindictive embrace; then, as if it had been he who suggested the idea of such a loathsome relation, hissed out the hated words, “Your sister!” and released him with a disdainful repulse.