The young men rolled back the huge rugs, leaving the hard-wood floor exposed. Mrs. Deering placed herself at the piano and struck up a little old-fashioned waltz which she had learned in her youth, and Millicent was whirled off her feet by her energetic partner. Not till she had danced twice with Deering and Ferrara, did Graham claim her hand for a waltz; and not till Mrs. Deering struck the last chords of the music did he loose her waist from his circling arm. Then a stroll on the piazza was proposed, and it was not till the last stroke of twelve warned them that the new day had begun that the party broke up. Barbara and Millicent stood together watching for Hal, who had gone to fetch Graham’s horse, when the artist joined them on the piazza and bade them good-night. Millicent, with her foreign breeding, never had conformed to the American habit of hand-shaking, but when Graham wished her good-night she instinctively and unconsciously gave him her hand. He held it possibly a half second longer than was necessary, and then sprang on his horse. As he rode down the dark path, he turned in his saddle and took a last look at the house. Barbara had gone indoors; one figure alone stood beneath the rose-vine with bare white arms, the figure he had seen on his arrival earlier in the evening. "Good-night to you," he cried. The deep, musical tones were answered by a farewell greeting from the girl who stood there alone in the night watching his retreating form. CHAPTER IV. "Then, in the boyhood of the year, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Rode through the coverts of the deer With blissful treble ringing clear; She seemed a part of joyous Spring."