cial duties of the wife of a merchant prince; and if, in the fulfillment of these obligations, she had no time to probe the old wound, it would not have been strange. But in the still watches of the night Corinne Beaumonde did steal into the closet where the life's skeleton lay, and sometimes thought that, of the women she knew, there was one worthy such love as that which had been hers.

At heart Corinne was better than she seemed, and said: "At best I've only a heart for which my world has little use. Dorothy Harcourt has a soul for which that world has no use, but she keeps it in reserve for a casual paradise."

In her heart Mrs. Beaumonde loved Dorothy Harcourt; but in that yet unclassified, uncalled organ which is seated nearer the epidermis and serves the woman of fashion for those every-day emotions of liking, disliking, pride, vainglory, and caprice, she thought of Dorothy Harcourt as a card for her dinners, a partie for her eligible masculine friends, of whom she had a score, equally suited, she believed or said in her shallow moods, to be the husband of that beautiful girl, had she not possessed an inconvenient soul."

Dorothy, although not lending herself to her friend's shallow designs, did not obtrude her soul on

dinner parties, in spite of the fact that it would still reflect itself upon the glass of fashion in a way which was not becoming to the opposing properties of vanity and folly. But Miss Harcourt did not occupy the seat of the scornful in these feasts of Mammon, but took a real and intense interest in those exponents of life in its more luxurious phases.

Horace the poet, in Augustan times, B. C., said happier things of good living than men of later days. Was it perhaps that those immortal odes were inspired by material things which are wanting to our modern muse?

Mecenas the rich, we may suppose, gave those charming little suppers, where the poet could be at his ease on luxurious couches and imbibe freely wine which was more satisfying than the nectar of Olympia; but the muse of the modern Anacreon is too often fed by the "comfort scorned of devils, the memory of happier things," the crumbs from the rich man's table, or the stolen vision of the rich man's banquet across the way.

What inspiration for Anacreon in glittering sideboards loaded with plate! Then the sparkling champagne, the burning cognac, the ambient hock, the golden coffee, the radiant women, the

complacent men! He forthwith pens those immortal odes to "The Banquets of Dives," "The Symposia of Aspasia," "The Cena of Crocsus," and no one except his landlady knows of that two pair back, his meager den, which commands the interior view of the millionaire's dining-room.

That he might break through that plate-glass and snatch from the servile butler those tidbits he is bearing away! That he might, forsooth, be one of those flunkeys to stand in the gilded presences, to catch the gold-dust that flies in their atmosphere, the brilliants of badinage and the current coin of flattery. How rich he might be! What wealth for the penny-a-liner! Alas! our Anacreon is only a penny-a-liner, and he sits up aloft in his two pair back and looks greedily in on the great Beaumonde dinners, and scratches down his personal items for the weekly issue of "The Great at Home":

"The charming hostess, in a bewildering combination of creamy satin and old lace, entertained the grave and reverend Judge, who is named for the next vacancy in the Supreme Court. Miss Harcourt, the daughter of the great politician, brilliant and beautiful in violet velvet, with jewels of amethysts and pearls; Miss Derby, lovely in white mull, which suited her blonde beauty; Miss

Chisholm, a handsome brunette, in crimson velvet with pale pink satin; the distinguished member from Jersey, the witty writer of 'Daily' leaders, made this one of the most brilliant successes of Mrs. Beaumonde's many social triumphs." And as the penny-a-liner obtains these items which shall add to his reputation for familiarity with the great, and swell the sales of the society journal, "The Great at Home," he can not know the true inwardness of the scene of which he is vouchsafed so superficial a knowledge.

Corinne Beaumonde is radiant. There is no flaw in her well-arranged dinner. The service is noiseless and efficient. The conversational menu, as varied and spicy as the more substantial one, from oysters through soup, pièce, entrees, game, salad, with their proper accompaniment of wines. It was with the maraschino, that most insidious and intoxicating of liquors, which marks a reckless stage at dinners, that James bore on his silver tray to his mistress, not a toast from the man of the Daily," not a health to the ladies, nor victory to the conquering sex-not that. What was it? Not one of those ill-omened messengers whose livery is the yellow of Eastern death!—the uncompromising, unvarnished, irrevocable electric messenger,

which makes no apologies, wears no court-dress, carries no ceremonious passport, makes no salaams. Unasked, undesired, unexpected, it enters in fearlessly, changing in the glance of an eye our lives for that hour, perhaps through all time, as surely, as fatally, pitilessly, hopelessly as that dread writing on the wall at the ancient feast of Belshazzar. It came there to Corinne Beaumonde, an uninvited guest to her dinner, and she received it smiling, took the crisp, thin yellow envelope, tore the veil of uncertainty and crushed the words in her white hands, and smiled again, this time on the judge. Was the message of woe or of weal? Can any one know? How she smiled! "James, the maras

chino ! The maraschino ! O fair young woman, will maraschino burn the electric message off your heart? Maraschino is near the end, so the smiles and the badinage were soon over, and men left to their cognac, coffee, cigars-those three Cs spelling comfort for men-thought little of the strange guest who spoke so little yet said so much.

It was then that Dorothy Harcourt's soul came to the help of her friend. Into no casual paradise, but the purgatory of suffering which only the woman knows who has put away pain and passion as not for her-not for the rich and the fêted, not