phase of wretchedness to which they found themselves victims. Mrs. Van Corlear was never reduced to any humiliating discomfort by wind or wave, and though it was blowy sat contentedly on deck till it was time to go down to the saloon. She slipped into her state-room to lay aside her heavy shawl.

The Señor felt it and lowered his eyes. He had read her soul and retired into his own. These psychic advances and retrogressions were distinctly conveyed to Mrs. Van Corlear. There was a devotional homage in the one and a deprecatory obeisance in the other.

Mr. Van Corlear was waiting to assist his wife into the carriage. As they were driven off to the Grand Hotel he said to her: "That was the Spaniard we saw at the Cuatro Naciones, wasn't it?"

"A man left them, saying they were for Madame Van Corlear. Is it not right, madame?" returned the woman. "Quite so," said Mrs. Van Corlear, softly.

She fastened one in her bosom and went to the table. The Señor was there, and his eyes flashed on her like beaconlights. How mellow, lambent, possessive, and sympathetic they were! But there was no sign of recognition beyond that mutual glance.

When they got to the port of Marseilles for some reason or other the passengers were taken to the pier in small boats. Only three or four persons could go comfortably in one, and when Mr. Van Corlear, Roger, and Rutger were installed the captain declared the passenger-list of that particular craft full.

"Madame will meet her husband on the quay. It is only a moment's separation," he said to Mrs. Van Corlear as the boat was rowed off.

Madame was not given to perturbation over trifles, and composedly waited for the next boat. The step from the ladder to the boat was a little long, and as she was preparing to make it she felt a strong arm pass under her elbow and she was lightly sustained. When she got to her seat in the stern she looked to see who her helper had been. She almost started as she met the familiar look from the Señor's dark eyes. They seemed to be straining her to him by the subduing force which streamed from them.

The pathetic curve in Mrs. Van Corlear's eyebrows was at once enhanced.

"I think it was," said Mrs. Van Corlear.

When she went to her room the next

They only delayed in Marseilles one day. At Nice they secured a cheerful apartment, with a balcony, at the Hôtel des Anglais. It commanded a fine view of the carriages that swept by in the Flower Festival of the Carnival. At dinner Mrs. Van Corlear met several Americans and some English people whom she knew, but no one else. Her mood that evening was a little thoughtful, a little restive.

The next morning after breakfast she walked up-stairs rather slowly. She knew it would be a pain to her, a silly pain of course, not to find red roses on her table when she got there. But they had breathed a sympathetic greeting to her every morning for five weeks and— well, they had to end sometime.

She entered her room with a disinclination to do so. There had been a queer feeling in her heart on the way up-stairs. It disappeared the moment she opened her door and looked in. There they were, the rosy comforters, waiting her coming. The curve in her eyebrows that made her pathetic was not there at all as she stood looking down at the roses. There was such steadfastness in this devotion of the unknown Señor, and the beautiful expression of it through his eyes and through his roses. There was something as soothing to her in it as the aromatic balm of a pine-grove steeped in the sunshine of a spring afternoon.

She preferred now not to know him, not to speak to him. This graceful interchange of sympathies without the medium of speech, without any avowed purpose, appealed to her with a satisfy

ing sense which words might dispel. Is not the mere presence of a person loved comfort and support? Yes; the roses told enough, and the Señor was near enough so. "Quite," said Mrs. Van Corlear to herself, as, half-unconsciously, while inhaling the pure sweetness of one of the great roses she found her lips moving toward its petals.

She would not even ask what motive could lead the stately Señor to pay her a delicate attention which the most fervent gallant could not have surpassed in constancy. The serene gravity of the dark face, the luminous vitality of the large eyes, the half-condescending smile which a sense of humor sometimes sent to disturb the immobility of his lower face, all these were points for which Mrs. Van Corlear's own temperament had affinity.

With a sense of accepting the gifts which the gods send, she allowed her gaze to rest for a moment on the splendid eyes of the Señor, after she had seated herself at table that evening. They were truly doorways, which to look into was to enter. Mrs. Van Corlear crossed the threshold, and followed the avenues to quiet depths in the Spaniard's being. The glow of his eyes was not a flickering gleam, nor was it an ignis fatuus. It was like the luminous light that informs depths of deep translucent water.

When the sun had thoroughly warmed the world, and the mistral was not blowing, Mrs. Van Corlear would come out on the little balcony which led off from her room and bask in the sunshine. Sometime while she was there, the Señor was sure to pass along the walk below. It was like the parade of a sentinel detailed for private duty on his sovereign. Every morning the roses appeared on her table and in the evening one was always placed in Mrs. Van Corlear's bosom when she came to dinner.

The day they had arrived the clerk in the hotel, whom the Van Corlears knew, said to Mrs. Van Corlear: "Madame, a gentleman asked me for the number of your room to-day. I did not know if you would care to have it given to him, and thought I would speak to you first." "Who is the gentleman?" she inquired.

"He is a distinguished Spanish gentleman, Count Pedro d'Avendaño, of Barcelona."

"Oh, you can give my number to Count d'Avendaño. We are very good friends," she said, smilingly.

The Señor renewed his acquaintance with Roger at Nice. Sometimes when the rosy boy came back from his morning play, he would bring a bunch of flowers with him.

"The dark gentleman gave me these. He said I might want to give them to my mamma. What is the matter with the gentleman, mamma?" said Roger, suddenly turning his pink and white face up to her and leaning his elbow in her lap.

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Matter, Roger! what do you mean? Is anything the matter with him?" Mrs. Van Corlear passed her hand over his flushed forehead and brushed back the frowsy curls.

"Oh, he's sad. He doesn't have a good time," said Roger, regretfully. "He is nice, and we have fun, but he doesn't laugh and seem funny."

"A person cannot always laugh and seem funny, you little trot," said his mother, pinching his cheek. Roger looked as if he meant to, as he went off with Rutger.

No morning failed to bring the roses to Mrs. Van Corlear's room. They sweetened the day for her. A month of days were so sweetened. But to-morrow was their last day in Nice. Mr. Van Corlear had received news of business complications that made him anxious to be in New York. He wished his wife and Roger to go back with him. This seemed affectionate. But Mrs. Van Corlear knew that he liked to have his handsome wife at his handsome table in his handsome dining-room, and wished to have his large, elegant house presided over properly. The housekeeper would have done just as well could she have reflected as much credit on Mr. Van Corlear.

However, he had been too considerate in travelling with her, when he hated travel, for her to say one word against his desire. So they were going to-morrow! She went out on the Promenade des Anglais her last afternoon at Nice and seated herself on a bench. Roger

was having great fun with Rutger some distance away, while his mamma sat there, drooping slightly in her deep thoughtfulness. She was musing on what life would be to her if it were a rose-fed dream of daily love. Why could not consideration, respect, and duty make up for the absence of that imponderable element?

Her left hand was thrust into a black velvet muff which rested on her lap. On top of it was pinned a large bunch of Parma violets. They were the speech with which the Señor had wished her "Good-day." She was looking at the sparkling blue of the Mediterranean, and thinking that after to-day she would not find roses on her table every morning, unless she ordered them from the florist's. She was perfectly certain that she did not want roses from a florist, and the Señor and his roses would not follow her to America.

The pathetic curve in her eyebrows was strongly pronounced, and the lines of her mouth were slightly relaxed. Suddenly she saw a tall majestic figure approaching her. She watched the Señor as he drew near. There was something noble and dignified about the man. Then she turned her gaze to the sea. When he was quite near her, only a few yards away, she raised her eyes and looked at him steadily. She was going to-morrow and would never see him again. And he had transfused two

months of her life with such a delicate sweetness, so unrewardedly.

His dark tender eyes were bent upon her. She did not withdraw her own. In that unflinching steadiness there was no boldness, no coquetry. The expression of her eyes partook in part of that of her eyebrows, only there was something else here. As he was directly opposite her she slowly raised her muff and inhaled the perfume of the violets, letting her soul for once say what it would through her eyes.

The Señor's gaze followed the movement. Everything about her, the languid pose, the expression of her face, gave a meaning and a character to the act which it had not in itself. Into his large lustrous eyes there crept that look of tender reverential homage which she knew so well. She had never accepted

it before. There was a moment's lagging of the feet. He almost stopped, but did not quite. Instead, he raised his hat with a slow broad sweep and bent his head gravely letting his eyes fall. It was an eloquent movement. He passed slowly on, and Mrs. Van Corlear, when her gaze sought the scene before her, found that the Mediterranean twinkled like a diamond and Roger was a blurred spot of gold and white.

The Van Corlears left the next day, and within a week sailed from London for New York. They settled down in their stately house on Fifth Avenue and resumed their social duties. Mr. Van Corlear was very much pleased to be back, and Mrs. Van Corlear was more coldly elegant than she had ever been.

They had not been home more than three weeks, when one forenoon the servant brought Mrs. Van Corlear a basket of superb Jacqueminot roses. There was no card. Her heart gave one quick bound and the color crept into her cheeks. Who had left them; a boy from the florist's. Run after him and get him. She wished to speak with him.

The servant returned with the captured boy. Mrs. Van Corlear asked him who had ordered the flowers. He didn't know his name. Was he tall? Yes. Very dark and with large brilliant eyes? The boy had not noticed. Did he look like a Spaniard? He couldn't tell. Well, that would do.

She took them with her own hand to her sitting-room, where she spent the pleasantest hours of her day and to which only a very few were ever admitted. She was in a strange frame of mind. It was soothing, and had a sweetness in it which she liked to feel was mastering rather than welcomed.

Mr. Van Corlear came home at dinnertime. When his wife walked into the room, he glanced up quickly and said: "Why, where are the roses. I thought you would have them on the dinnertable, and put around the room.'

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"The roses that-What roses ?' said Mrs. Van Corlear.

"Why, I ordered some Jacks this morning. Didn't they come?"

"Oh, yes. Did you want them on the dinner-table? I put them in my sittingroom."

Certainly, I should have attended to it," she answered, listlessly.

John, go to my room and bring those roses down and arrange them on the table."

"Don't ever get red roses, please," said she to her husband, as John went on his errand.

"Why, I thought you liked them well enough. You kept getting them all the time in Europe. I thought you liked them."

"One tires of everything, even red roses. I got so many there that I want none here. But that is a caprice. If you like them there is not the faintest reason why you should not get them."

Mr. Van Corlear was some fifteen years his wife's senior. His fondness for indulgence at the table had brought on an inconvenient augment in avoirdupois. Once or twice since they had returned from Europe he had felt an attack of vertigo, and once had nearly fallen after dinner. The doctor advised him to take horseback exercise in the Park, and he had done so regularly. He did not like the idea of getting too bulky. One afternoon after he had taken a hearty luncheon, washed down with a bottle of Chambertin, he came down the brown-stone steps and got into the saddle. As the horse gave a quick start he reined him in suddenly, and before the groom could come to his assistance, reeled in his saddle and fell heavily off, striking the ground on his head.

He was at once taken into the house. Mrs. Van Corlear was driving in the Park, and someone hastened to find her. By the time she got home her husband was dead. There had been a severe contusion of the skull, and he lived only an hour, quite unconscious.

Mrs. Van Corlear did with her bereavement what so many Americans of her caste do with one, took it to Europe. She spent some time in London with Mrs. Oliver, who lived there in a serene expatriation. Mrs. Van Corlear did not care to tax the hospitality of her hostess too far, and she was not used to such a little box of a house. So she proposed to Mrs. Oliver that they should drift about on the Continent.

To

Mrs. Oliver was only too willing. have her bills paid, and to be seen with a strikingly aristocratic friend by other friends were things that had weight with Mrs. Oliver. One morning they were breakfasting at Pau. Mrs. Van Corlear's dark gown made her look pale, perhaps. After looking at her a ment, Mrs. Oliver said with her robust vivacity:

"I wish we could go to Barcelona again. Your health was very good there. But I don't suppose you want to go so soon, my dear.

"My health is good everywhere. But I had as lief go to Barcelona as anywhere else," Mrs. Van Corlear answered, with the least touch of coldness.

A few days later found them at the Fonda das Cuatro Naciones again. When they went down to dinner, Mrs. Van Corlear was breathing a little quicker than usual. The jet black hair and sombre mourning brought out the clear tones of her rich face more delicately. The dining-room looked like an old friend, and the flowers beamed through the gray arcade, joyously fair. As Mrs. Van Corlear glanced down the table and saw no familiar face, a sudden sense of loneliness smote her, and she had to straighten herself to repress a sigh. When the flower girl passed through the room she turned from her and her blushing merchandise almost irritably.

Roger and Mrs. Oliver took a stroll in the Park the next day. When they returned and Mrs. Van Corlear had Roger to herself she asked him about his enjoyment. He was in high spirits. Had he seen anybody he knew? Yes: the donkey-man. Nobody else? No: only the donkey-man.

The next day Mrs. Oliver and Roger did the Park again. When Mrs. Van Corlear found herself alone, she sent for the landlord. Were these the same rooms they had when they were there before? The landlord thought they were. They were satisfactory, he hoped. Oh, yes. Could not a low rocking-chair be put in the room? Certainly. It should be done. That was all? That was all. Thanks.

The landlord had bowed obsequiously and nearly reached the door when Mrs. Van Corlear's voice arrested him.

"Oh, by the bye," she said, rising, and looking carelessly from the window, "is Señor d'Avendaño still in Barcelona ?"

"Ah, Señora," the landlord answered in a tone that caused her to turn her eyes rather quickly on him and to take her expression well in hand, "I hope the Señor d'Avendaño is in heaven. It is not a fortnight since his death. He died of a fever. He was only sick a few days. It is a great loss to the city." "Yes," said Mrs. Van Corlear. "I regret to hear of his death. The Señor was of some service to me when I was here before. He seemed quite a charming person, and I thought his health perfect."

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"It was, Señora. He was one of the finest gentlemen in Europe. Such a beautiful soul!" the landlord continued, warmly. "But he never seemed himself after his wife's death."

"Ah, I did not know he was married," murmured Mrs. Van Corlear.

"Yes. The Countess was a lovely young woman, and the Count was madly in love with her. She lived only a week after the birth of her first child, and the little boy died soon after. was very hard on the Count. This was not more than a year and a half ago. And, Señora, if you will pardon me,

It

your likeness to the Countess is something extraordinary. The upper part of your face and the shape of your head are almost exactly hers."

"Sometimes one finds these strange resemblances," said Mrs. Van Corlear. Then, after a moment's pause, she said, "I fear I have detained you too long. Thanks. If you will think of the chair.

The landlord bowed again, and this time withdrew. She remained motionless till the door closed. Then she moved toward the window, sank into a chair, and sat looking out, while the tears trickled slowly down and fell unchecked on her hands.

"Have you not had enough of Barcelona?" she asked of Mrs. Oliver when she came in with Roger. "It seems to me the heat is stifling here. I think, if you do not care, we will go to Geneva to-morrow morning."

The next day they left Barcelona. In the afternoon, two young girls were straying through the graveyard. They strolled toward a plot where there were two graves, side by side. One of them was freshly made.

"Oh, look at Señor d'Avendaño's grave!" cried one.

It was covered with red Barcelona

roses.