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"Yes."

"Belvedere and Curtis had gone into the hall and were busily conversing, Beatrice sang:

"Leave us not, oh! gentle stranger,
Linger with us yet awhile;

Sweet thy presence; sweet the danger,
That is lurking in thy smile.
Sure my heart, at every meeting,
Feels a new and strange delight;
Biss they say is always fleeting,
Let it not be so to-night."

"Come, Sterling."

Belvedere's voice was unheard.

Sterling scarcely knew where he was. Proprieties were nearly forgotten, when Beatrice arose and walked towards the door. Sterling followed mechanically, and the parting word was a hearty "good night." Did he touch her fingers! Barely, but it was enough if their gloves met.

A shadow is falling on this house.

Here is desolation in prospect; an impatient, doubting husband; a neglected, injured wife, each in thought upbraiding the other, and excusing themselves.

Beatrice had returned to her piano and was sitting pensively, not caring to play. Curtis strode across the parlor after parting with his guests, threw himself on a lounge and remained there in sullen silence. The stillness of death reigned in that room where a few moments before there had been the wild.

est outbreaks of merriment. These o persoas were alone, alone! Their eyes are not gaming K each other with the subdued ires of affection or ember-stirred sparklets of exhaustet :ove. are no raptures now. The free, glad, teen, sonde ing look is gone forever. Sorrow is in the e. side by side with sullen carelessness and tespair. Yet it is not too late to cure all this. Curtis, arse thyself! Be as thou wert in the holy days y happy love! Abandon thy wicked course of ite Return to thy allegiance with fervency in my heart, and bring with thee all that earnest assiduity of home devotion which one true heart has a right to iemand of its chosen mate. Thy smiles will be a fortress that no enemy can scale, and thy Beatrice, though tempted by the fairest of the angels, will know 30 love but thine.

CHAPTER VI.

Sterling had discovered, as he supposed, that Ernest had a talent for music. Her performance on the guitar, though rude, was yet indicative of the most delicate ear. She was nervously alive to the finest touches of harmony. He had observed, when with her at concerts, how she trembled under the swelling blasts of the full orchestra, as it shook the pillars of the old theatre. He had seen her alone with her guitar improvising, until her whole frame