priceless, and a pang of something like I take my maid with me, but I couldn't "Emanci- afford it this time. Poor girl, she was awfully disappointed!

fear shot through her.

pated" as she was, she could still be afraid of her own sex ; but another look at the girl's face reassured her.

She sighed, and then took up an evening paper that lay on the table be"I hope you feel better," she said side her. "Do you know anything pleasantly. about gold shares ?" she said.

"Thanks. I shall be all right when I have had a pint of champagne. There is nothing like it, is there?" "I suppose not, but I am not an authority. Champagne hasn't come much in my way.

"Are you going far ? ” "To Cannes."

"I never heard of that place. How do you spell it?"

"C-a-n-n-e-s."

"I am told they are an amusing thing to play with if you have a few hundreds to lose."

The girl looked up anxiously. "But I haven't a few hundreds to lose," she exclaimed hastily. "I hate losing money. Do you really know anything against them? ”

She seemed so genuinely distressed that the young woman hastened to reassure her. "Don't mind me," she said. "I am Any-shamefully ignorant about these things. If your man of business advised the investment, no doubt it is all right.”

"I should call that Cans," said the girl placidly. "Where is it? where near Monte Carlo ?"

"Yes; some thirty miles away, I should think on this side the frontier."

"I mean to go to Monte Carlo later in the season not this time. I am just running over to Paris to get a few gowns from Worth. I often do that. They can't make gowns in England at all. You'll see, of course, that this is a Redfern I have on. I got it in a hurry, and it does to knock about in." The plain young woman looked down at her own home-made serge with keen appreciation of the humor of the situation. "I think even that gown will pass muster," she said, smiling.

"He didn't advise it. I was determined to have them. A friend of mine made heaps of money in gold mines, and I don't see why I shouldn't make a little. It takes such a lot of money to live nowadays," she added pathetically. "Just look at this bill! -seventeen francs - that is nearly a pound for a single dinner! And what can one do? One must have a little wine!"

In another moment her whole face lighted up. A man was walking up the car with a lady on his arm, and she raised her eyes to bow to him. The "Oh, I know I am looking a fright jewels flashed more brilliantly than this evening," said the girl discon-ever; the picturesque hat was pushed tentedly, turning to the mirror and try-back; the wine had lent a more sensuing to arrange her fringe. Then a new ous charm to the beautiful face; but thought struck her. "How old do you one man at least was guiltless of the think I am?" she asked suddenly. indiscretion of " "" "staring; the man I can't guess ages." who had spoken to her on the steamer "Never mind. You won't offend passed her now without a glance. me. Guess!'"

66

A cloud like the sudden chill of sunset came over her face. "Come," she said sharply, "let us go." When they reached the corridor she added, "The

"Twenty five," said the young woman slowly, subtracting a year or two from her mental estimate. "I thought you would say twenty-man will be making up your berth, so seven. Everybody says so, but I am you can come to my den for a bit. I only twenty-three. It's my manner, I told them I should not lie down, as I suppose. You see I have knocked leave the train at Paris." about so much. I believe I have travelled over the whole world! Usually

They entered the tiny half-compartmeut, and the girl lifted a sealskin coat

t

from the seat. "It got wet on the steamer," she said, "and I spread it out to dry. If you don't mind, we'll put it over our knees."

"Great honor for me to be clad in such raiment for once!"

The owner of the coat stroked it caressingly.

"You see the line where it was joined, though, don't you?" she said, with serious, childlike simplicity. "They said it wouldn't show, but it does. It was so awfully unlucky! I bought it just before long coats came in, and there it was, useless! But you should see my new sealskin! Such a beauty-nearly down to my feet!"

"Do you know," said the plain young woman deliberately, but with a very pleasant smile, "that you are a most extravagant young woman?"

"It is so queer," continued the girl. "All we have got, people can take from us; but the one thing that is really our own is the power to think our own thoughts. Nobody can get hold of that. They think they have us in their power, but that one thing they never can get. We are under their "I wish you could. I love pretty very eyes, but they can't see us a bit." gowns."

"I know," was the eager, self- satisfied response. "In dress I am. You see, dress is my hobby. I have got some lovely gowns. I wish I could show them to you !"

She paused. "And yet," she added suddenly, with a revulsion of feeling that was almost dramatic in its expres

A cloud came over the beautiful face again, and the girl sighed. "But it's all no use," she said pathetically. "Ision, "the very thing we dread most is have no chance to wear them. They to sit and think our own thoughts. 1 are simply thrown away. That is why We knock about and talk and travel, I am going to Monte Carlo. They do and do anything rather than think. dress there, don't they?" That is why I like my maid so much. The young woman looked up with a She chatters away, and never lets me feeling of something like reverence think. I wish I had brought her with for such utter frankness. "I don't me! I wish I had her to-night ! " know," she said quietly. "I have The young woman could scarcely never been on the Riviera. I am only find words. This was indeed the turngoing now for my health or I should ing of the tables. A moment before not be travelling in state like this." she had prided herself innocently on being able to sympathize with her enthusiasm for dress; and now, behold, without any flourish of trumpets, an incursion had been made into her own particular realm of philosophy! And this was such genuine philosophy, too, of its kind! No second-hand réchauffé of modern essays and magazine articles, but a bit of pure, crude, untutored reflection, freshly secreted from a human heart and brain. Her reply, when it came, was not philosophical-scarcely even relevant.

The girl frowned slightly, as if a disagreeable subject had been broached. "How horrid for you!" she said rather coldly.

A silence fell on them after that. 3 The train rattled on through the night. The lamp was reflected in each window, but nothing else was visible. It seemed to the plain young woman as if two oddly assorted human souls were adrift on a raft in the midst of eternity. Perhaps some such thought was vaguely present also in the mind of the

"I suppose you know," she said | quite quietly — quite quietly — till he is slowly, leaning her head on her hand, nice again, and then I will show him and looking up into her companion's how horrid I can be !" face, "that it is a little unusual for a The young 66 woman laughed. 'Is pretty girl of twenty-three to be rat- that the correct treatment under the tling about the world in Worth toilettes, circumstances?" she said. "It never with or without a maid as young would have occurred to me." as herself; investing in gold shares on "I suppose you don't care about her own account, and dropping into men?" casinos as if they were picture-galleries?"

The other laughed rather unpleasantly.

66

"It is just that pretty girl of twentythree," she said, "who knows life. Men ? I believe no woman living knows men as I do. If I were to tell you things that have happened, things that I have seen She paused. "I should listen with deference, but say that your view was necessarily a one-sided one." "Why?" lenge.

"Because "—the young woman was surprised at her own boldness going about as you do, you don't meet the best men, nor see the best side to those you do meet.”

"I do extremely. I have one or two friends, who

"Oh, friends!" exclaimed the girl wearily.

66

By the way, you had a friend with you on the steamer, had not you?" The young woman despised herself the more for the direct question when she saw the color rise to the fair face.

"Yes-no that is, yes, he is a sort of a friend. I hope you don't think," she exclaimed suddenly, "that is the man I was talking about! The The word was a chal- one on the steamer is well, no matter! He is a cut above me, anyhow; and besides, he is married already. It is a duty to be kind to him, poor fellow! His wife's a brute." The little woman laughed - a fresh young laugh. "I am not an authority "You believe there is a best side, do on men, like you," she said; "but I should have thought you must have discovered that it is rather delicate work for a pretty girl to be kind to a man whose wife is a brute.' Matrimonial duties and responsibilities can scarcely be safely delegated."

you?"

66

"I don't. I know it."

The beautiful lips curled contemptuously. “If I were to write a book, and tell my experiences ——"

?

"And that contents you ""
"Sometimes. It leaves room for
other things. At the present moment
it contents me just to look at your
face."

"I thought you despised beauty?"
"Then you are a fool," was the

The "Thank you; that will do." plain young woman rose into quiet dignity at once. "I suppose you are not actually a Venus; and my friends, no doubt, would tell you that I am not irredeemably ugly; but we are speaking broadly, and, broadly speaking, there is no doubt that we are fair representa-young woman's mental comment, but tives of the two classes. You are a she only said, "I don't think you can beautiful woman, and I am what, by have thought that. I don't despise the a euphemism, we call plain. Naturally Koh-i-noor because I should not care you think the advantage is all on your to wear it in Regent Street." side. If you had thought of me at all when we met at Victoria, you would have said, 'Poor devil! but why at least doesn't she wear a decent gown?""

The beautiful girl glanced at the dark serge folds, and tried in vain to find a redeeming feature in their quiet severity.

"And yet," continued the speaker, "if by any chance you and I were to travel again to-morrow night with all these men, they would say, when you entered the dining-car, 'Here is that handsome girl again!' When I came iu, it would never occur to any of them that they had seen me before. Don't you see? I am invisible. I have got the ring of Gyges. Nobody is on his guard with me - I see people as they

are."

She

The young girl did not answer. was perplexed, but one thing was clear to her mind. It was obviously possible to pay too high a price even for the ring of Gyges.

"It must be such a responsibility to carry about a work of art in your own person," went on the other. "You must inherit yourself to such an extent that you cease to inherit the earth."

The unintentional rudeness of this remark was fortunately lost on its hearer.

"I expect," she said, a little nervously, "that you are very learned." "Oh no!" The young woman

"Do you write books yourself?"
"No."

"Nor paint pictures ?"
"No."

"Nor compose?"

"Are you engaged to be married ? " "No."

There was half a minute's silence, and then the next question came suddenly,

"Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?"

Accustomed though the young woman was to the intense talk of the youth of the present day, the abruptness of this attack took her breath away. "I don't know," she said, surprised out of all caution. "I agree with a great teacher of mine who says that it is no concern of ours. We have enough light to live by without that. It is surely a want of faith to ask for more."

The girl tapped her foot impatiently on the floor of the carriage. These were not the lines on which her mind had worked.

"What I always say is," she said, "that nobody ever has come back. Why should we ever have taken it into our heads that there was another life? We had no reason to think so. Que after another goes, but nobody ever comes back to tell us.”

"Why should we ever have taken it into our heads that there was another laughed pleasantly. “Well, we are life?" repeated the young woman talking more or less honestly, so I will meditatively. "I suppose—if we are confess that I am learned enough to to think of the matter at all—that is know when somebody else writes a the one great argument for its existgood poem, or paints a good picture, or euce."

composes good

LIVING AGE.

waltz."

VOL. VII. 314

"Billets, s'il vous plait !"

The smart young conductor stood in the doorway.

moved imperceptibly along, and the soft plash of the oars could be heard “Oh, bother our tickets! "exclaimed now and then from the shore. The the girl, looking up with a charming band had ceased playing, and most of smile. "If you plague me, you shall the promenaders had gone home for get no tip do you understand?" the night; but down on the beach a

The man bowed with very evident | little crowd was gathered still, listening admiration for the lovely speaker. to the eager, thrilling voice of a misyou go sion preacher.

Tell me,'

"she went on,

all the way with this train ?"

"Yes, madame."

do

"To Monte Carlo?"

"Yes, madame."

"Pretty place, eh?"

"Oh, but beautiful, madame ! " "Lots of pretty gowns,

pose?"

66

I sup

"Let us take a turn along the parade, if you are not too tired," said a young man to his companion. "It is a glorious evening, and, now that the world, the flesh, and the devil have retired, the place is almost bearable." He spoke with a pleasant air of camaraderie, and the plain young woman "It is lovely,"

Very pretty, but none perhaps so looked up with a smile. pretty as madame's."

The girl laughed gaily. mean to have a heavy tip," "Shall you still be on this month or two?"

"You do
she said.
train in a

Probably, madame." "Perhaps I shall be going to Monte Carlo then. No such luck this time. Tell us about the casino. What is it like ?"

" Will you allow me to pass, please?" said the plain young woman coldly to the conductor. In the corridor she paused and looked over her shoulder. "I am going to see if my berth is ready," she said. "I shall see you again. Au revoir !"

But half an hour later, when she returned to say good-night, her place was occupied by the man "whose wife was a brute."

she said, "and I am not a bit tired ; but I am afraid I am Philistine enough to enjoy the world, the flesh, and the devil too."

"I must apologize, then, for taking you up to the solitude of the Great Orme."

"I have enjoyed it so much," she said simply. "It has been one of those walks that stand out in one's memory after long years. It is very good to see you again, Fred."

Her companion did not answer immediately.

"And I am so glad you mean to devote yourself to figure-painting," she went on. "I have always felt sure that was your line. I am certain you will get on now."

"It is certainly a line that lends itself to the production of pot-boilers ! " he said moodily.

One sees

"A curious acquaintance!" said the young woman to herself as she slipped "That's an advantage I had not away unobserved, "cuts her point- thought of," she answered, laughing. edly in the dining-car, aud, an hour" And yet I don't know. later, settles down for a comfortable | plenty of pot-boiler landscapes. You chat in her compartment. Save me know the kind of thing-finikin folifrom such friends!" age, and a boat with reflections in the

And with this reflection she betook water." herself to bed.

II.

THE darkness of an autumn night was settling over Llandudno, but a rich mellow afterglow still shone back from the placid bosom of the sea. Away out on the radiant streak a boat

"Yes, I know; like the picture I was so proud of getting into the New !"

"I absolutely decline to rise to that, Fred; but I am very glad you mean to stick to figures. I shall look for a great success in May."

"And will you provide the subject?"