In the largest parlor, where the Orleans sofas are pushed ignominiously against the wall, youthful New York is whirling about to the strains of the Corporal Listnor waltz. Two belles of the evening the room contains,--Maria Mayo, of Virginia and New Jersey, who married General Winfield Scott, and Matilda Hoffman, the love of gay young Washington Irving. A third, and the most remarked of all that large company,--Ellen Conover,--has just passed through the doorway on the arm of Nathaniel Moore. A handsome couple they make,--she in her lace gown and he in dark plum-colored evening clothes. She is smiling, for she does not see the look of misery in his eyes. "The stars are out, dear; shall we go into the garden and sit under our own little beech-tree?" she asks. Our beech-tree! How the words sink into his soul and cut like knives! "No, Ellen," he answers; "the leaves of the tree, so tender and young, are old and seared for us." "Why, Nathaniel, how strange you talk!" she says. Then she looks into his white face and begins to understand. Oh, the anguish of his drawn young face, as he folds her in his arms and tells her to be brave. Into the library she follows him. Her step has lost its buoyancy and the roses have died in her cheeks. A woman's intuition has guessed what he has to tell her. Something has come between them. Softly he closes the door on the lights, the music, and the babble of happy voices. "Kiss me and never let me speak again, darling," he whispers. But she lets him speak--and break her heart. Almost a century has passed since the dawn after the Moore ball when a girl stole down the slender staircase of that proud mansion. It was Ellen Conover garbed for a journey. Like the ghost of pleasure, she crept through the trellis-work of faded flowers which adorned the landing and hurried noiselessly over the slippery hall. No one was about but Thomas, who was picking up some of the motto papers and dead flowers strewn over the dining-room floor. Hearing the rustle of a woman's dress, he came to the door of that room and looked out with startled eyes. "Why, missy, is you going abroad so early?" he asked, incredulously. "Yes, Tom, I'm going back to Monmouth." Seeing a question in his eyes, she continued,-- "Aunt will understand. I have left a note by her door." In her hand she held a square deerskin bag, and the negro, not forgetting his manners in his bewilderment, asked whether he could carry it for her. "Thanks, Tom," she said, wearily, as he relieved her of the heavy burden. "Colonel Montgomery is to be at the Broadway corner for me. He is going to Englishtown, and has promised to see me home. The Paulus Hook coach passes at seven, you know."