As I saw them together--these two girls of different worlds--I was struck with the dissimilarity of them. Pert, vivacious little Frannie, blue-eyed, fair of hair--brown-skinned from the outdoor life she loved. And Leela--smooth, white skin, dark hair and luminous eyes, a fragile grace to her every movement. None of my words are adequate. There was about her an aura of romance; a strange wild spirit of something for which every man in his soul has a longing; a beauty with a quality ethereal--half human, but half divine. A twinge of conscience came to me that I--Frank Elgon--could think such thoughts and see such beauty in any girl who was not Frannie. Leela was saying, "My father would have you come down soon. And Zee is down there--Zee is very much excited, Brett. There is so much to do before tonight----" Brett's arm was around her. "And you--of course you're not excited, are you, Leela?" She returned his caress, embarrassed further by his teasing. He added, "We will be down presently." "Yes," she said; and with a pretty gesture, she left us. The sandals lay discarded on the floor. Brett gathered them up, regarding them tenderly. "She is so easy to tease, I love to do it. But if you try that with Zee----" "You shouldn't tease her," said Frannie. "She's a darling. I love her already." Brett's wedding day! For all his quiet, whimsical teasing of Leela, the love he bore her enveloped him like a shining cloak. Yet his father whom he loved so dearly was dead, and Brett did not know it. I whispered to Martt about it later. "I think we should not tell him," said Martt. "Not--until we have to." And we did not. Looking back on it now, how much was to happen to Brett--to Martt, to us all! What fearsome things--danger, desperation, despair--were to be our allotted portion before we even thought again of old Dr. Gryce who was dead! III Brett was to be married that evening--a public festival and ceremony over which the whole city was in an anticipatory fever. "The festival of lights and music," said Brett. "They hold it at periodic times. It is a wonderful sight. It generally includes a marriage--girls find it romantic. Leela selected it for us. Greedo is in charge of it--Leela and Zee always take part in its music. We must go down--they are waiting for us--there is so much for them to do between now and this evening." "I'll help," said Frannie. "Come on, Martt--I guess you want to meet Zee, don't you?" IV We found Leela's father to be a grave, black-robed, kind-faced old man of an age indeterminate. Sixty, or eighty, I could not have told. In vigorous health, evidently. His figure was spare, straight, but not tall. His thick, gray-black hair he wore long to the base of the neck. He greeted us quietly, with an admirable dignity commanding immediate respect.