This old man was not much given to amusing himself; and the beautiful scene before him had more than the charm of novelty. The flags, wreathed among flowers and heavy evergreen garlands, made the enclosure one vast bower, haunted with lovely women, ardent, generous, and radiant with winning smiles. The lights, twinkling through gorgeous draperies and feathery-fine boughs, almost blinded him as he came in from the dark street. The life, the hum of conversation, the laughter that now and then rang up from some stall, or group, fell upon him strangely. These people seemed mocking the heavy, dead weight of sorrow that lay upon his soul. At another time he would have gone away in disgust, muttering some sarcasm, and escaping out of the brightness with a sneer. But he was just then too wretched. He had refused money when it was asked of him; but now—now, when conscience was crowning his soul with thorns, he would be liberal. Fortunately, there was plenty of money in the breast-pocket which almost covered his heart—that should redeem him from his own reproaches. He would buy any amount of pretty nothings, and, for once, fling away his money like dirt—why not? It was his own, and no one in this world had a right to question him. With these new thoughts in his mind, the old man paused before one of those fairy-like enclosures, which, in such places, seem to have drifted out of Paradise. It was one mass of evergreens, living ivy, and creeping plants, rich with blossoms; back of the little bower this wealth of foliage was drawn back like the drapery of a window, and through its rich green came the gorgeous warmth of hot-house plants in full flower. Fuchsias, with a royal glow of purple at heart, and rich crimson folding it in, drooping over a Hebe vase of pure white alabaster, whose pedestal was planted among azalias white as clustering snow, pink as a summer-cloud, or blood-red, in great blossoming clusters, that fairly set the atmosphere ablaze with their gorgeousness. Behind all this was some tropical tree of the acacia species, drooping like a willow over the whole, and laden with raciness of delicate golden blossoms. Around the pedestal of the vase was a wreath of fire, composed of tiny jets of gas, trembling up and down like jewels half transmuted into the atmosphere, which shed a tremulous brilliancy into the cups of the flowers, and over the greenness of the leaves. In the midst of this lovely spot stood a young girl, with a fleecy white nubia twisted around her head, and a heavy velvet sacque shrouding her under-dress from head to foot—or, rather, so far as her person was visible. She had evidently only stepped into the stall to supply the place of its usual occupant, and looked a little bewildered when the old man came up and inquired the price of a wax-doll.