The wind stirred the yellow curls on the drooping head, and the moonlight touched them with fingers of light, bringing out their glints of gold. The great magnolia tree outside the window shook a gust of strong, sweet perfume from the large white waxen flowers, and the scent of June roses and lilacs came up from the old-fashioned garden. But the sweetness and beauty of the night seemed lost on little Irene, for her grieved sobs only burst forth afresh when Faith had departed. The girlish bosom heaved, the tears rained through her fingers, her smothered wail disturbed the harmony of the beautiful night. Another step came along the hall, a hand turned the door-knob and a handsome old man came into the room. "Irene, my pet, my darling, where are you hiding? Come to papa," he called, glancing around the dimly-lighted room. With a scream of joy the little figure sprang down from its high perch in the window, and ran precipitately into his arms. "Oh, papa, dear papa, you are home again!" she exclaimed, laughing and crying together, and patting his grey whiskers with her loving white hands. "Yes, but you aren't glad to see me one bit. You're crying because I've come home. Shall I go back to the city, eh?" he inquired, softly pinching her cheek, and looking at her with kind, blue eyes full of love. Irene hid her lovely face on his broad breast and sobbed aloud. "Why, what ails my little girl?" he exclaimed. "Who's been teasing my pet? Where are mamma and the girls?" With a fresh rain of tears, Irene sobbed out: "All g--gone to the b--ball, and would not let--let--me g--go, after you'd told them all I might, papa." The old man's genial face clouded over instantly with some intangible annoyance. "Why wouldn't they let you go?" he inquired. "Bertha said if I went, _she_ wouldn't," replied Irene, hushing her sobs, and answering in a high-pitched, indignant young voice; "she said children had no business at a ball! The idea of calling _me_ a child! I was _sixteen_, yesterday! Oh, papa, have you brought me a birthday present from the city?" she inquired, eagerly, forgetting for a moment her grievance. "Yes, dear. And so Bertha wouldn't let you go to the ball?" he said, taking a seat, and drawing her down upon his knee. "It was mamma, too. _She_ took Bertha's part, and said I shouldn't come out until the girls were married. Two Miss Brookes were quite enough in the market at one time she said. As if I wanted to marry any of their ridiculous beauxs, with their lisps, and their eye-glasses, and their black coats. I despise them!" cried Irene, indignantly. "That's because, as Bertha said, you're nothing but a child," laughed Mr. Brooke. "When you grow older you'll quite adore these black-coated dandies, I dare say;" then he added, in a graver tone: "Did Elaine forbid your going, too?"