corner-stand she had improvised out of three bamboos, a brass platter, and a yellow silk scarf? 'You should have packed it away in your box at once,' remarked Lewis coolly. 'Keene may repent his good-nature, or some of us may steal it. The colour is admirable.' As he spoke he walked over to the stand as if for closer examination. 'Don't touch it, please,' cried Mrs. Boynton hastily. 'You--you will spoil my draperies.' 'A thousand pities, when they are so artistic,' put in Colonel Tweedie, glad of the opportunity. 'That is dinner, Mrs. Boynton. I've had it laid in the small pavilion so as to keep this as your drawing-room.' 'Thanks! but everything is delightful; simply fascinating! In spite of what Mr. Keene said this morning, I begin to wish I were a native.' 'For the sake of the satin?' asked Lewis, who was following close behind with Rose. Gwen flashed back a brilliant look at him. 'No! not the satin. That game would not be worth the candle.' Apart from the question of satin, Mrs. Boynton had excuse for admiring the _mise en scène_. The violet sky, spangled with stars, seemed made apparently but for one end--to hap and hold that terraced roof which was clearly outlined against it by the light streaming from the pavilions on to the fretted white marble balustrades. At the corners were shadowy cupolas, and there in the arched summer-house at the farther end, close upon the velvet darkness, was a table set with silver and glass, fruits and flowers. At one side, so as to divide the ladies equally, was Rose, in her habit, doing the duty of hostess with a little air of gravity and preoccupation; at the other, Gwen, in her soft clouds of muslin, keeping the men in a state of admiring gratification through their eyes and their ears. They gathered round her too, when, dinner being over, they adjourned to the balconies for coffee and cigars. It was deliciously cool; a faint breeze stirred Rose's hair as she sat a little apart from the others watching the twinkling lights go up and down the stair which formed the only tie between that world on the roof and that world in the courtyard below. 'We ought to go to bed early,' said Lewis, Coming to stand before her. 'You are half-asleep--no wonder, after last night!--and Gwen is what superstitious Scotch folk call "fey." Then, if we have to join that detestable hawking-party to-morrow morning, we shall have to get up at five.' 'You needn't go unless you like,' she replied curtly. 'Mrs. Boynton has cried off.' 'I am not Mrs. Boynton's personal assistant, Miss Tweedie; I happen to be your father's--so duty calls.' As he spoke he seated himself on the balustrade and leant forward, his elbows on his knees, to watch the group on the other side of the arcade.