One night she was present at a great ball given in her honour by an intimate friend of the Countess. The room was filled with sweet perfumes, the mantel-pieces heaped with lilies of the valley and white lilacs. All the wealth of spring flowers lay fainting in the hot atmosphere. Not a drop of water to cool them, not a breath of air to ease their pain. The band shrieked out its cheap melodies, the dancers danced beneath the glare of electric lights. The fashionable throng enjoyed itself. But one out of its number felt as weary as the flowers. Dressed in clinging folds of soft satin, her hair was arranged low in her neck, and in her hand she held a few loose roses. She looked like a garden lily which had strayed from its home, and grieved to find that it had exchanged the evening air and the silence of the night for the glare of electric globes, the heat of a crowded room, and the hubbub of countless voices. "And so you do not like society?" said her partner, a young fellow whom she had often met before, and whom she greatly interested. "From what I know of it I do not. I think, too, that people who live in cities are cruel. Look at the poor lilacs and lilies massed together to faint and die. In my home we never think of letting flowers remain without water. We look upon them as living things. Every blossom has a life of its own; it knows pain and thirst. When I see them, torn from hedge and meadow by careless hands and thrown on to the roads to die in the dust, I know that for each flower an angel weeps." "Do not talk of things that make you sad. I want you to be happy to-night. You are enjoying yourself, are you not?" the young fellow inquired wistfully. Dangerous question to ask the grave idealist, but he had taken a great fancy to her, he sympathised with many of her feelings. "If you cannot say that you are enjoying yourself, please leave my question unanswered," he added hastily. Lady Mercy looked up in surprise, then partly comprehending his words, she said,-- "I like to talk with you; but I have had to converse with so many others who have nothing to say that I am weary--men who asked me whether I had seen this or that play, if I had been on the great wheel, did I approve of bicycling for women? Had I tried golfing? And then, having finished their stock of small talk, they taxed their poor ingenuity to pay me compliments." "I am not surprised," was the grave reply. "Oh! I wish you had not said that. Why should a man seek to flatter a woman; in short, to insult her?" "I would not offend you for the world!" he cried. "Indeed I am sorry." "And I am grieved to have spoken bitterly. Pardon me, I do not know how to talk even to you, and everything is so strange," she said, flushing deeply. "Tell me of what you like most yourself; that will interest me beyond all other subjects."