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280 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.

" I can't," said Dolly, wiping her eyes and standing erect. " I feel as if he was talking for the sake of talking. There seems to be no sympathy between us, no thoughts in common. If I try to speak about music and art, and re- member some of the great names and achievements of Italy, he caps me with some far wiser thought than mine, and does it, it seems to me, in a patronizing manner, as if I were a fool. But I will not bear it. If he is as dis- appointed as I am with the engagement about which so much fuss has been made, I would like him to break it off at once. Don't give me Eau-de-Cologne, I don't want it."

" My dear, my dear, you are beside yourself! At least put a little Eau-de-Cologne on your handkerchief and bathe your face. Your eyes are red, and you will be positively unpresentable at the Fazio Palace if you do not lie down and calm yourself."

" Very well, I will. Do forgive me, Jenny. I am very miserable. I meant to be very happy, and I will yet, in spite of Mr. Philip Forsyth. Cannot you see how strange he is ? Of course you can talking in that highly superior, poetic, dreamy, silly, idiotic way about Venetian models and rubbish ! "

Dolly's fair face flushed with anger. She hardly knew what she was saying. But it is the privilege of the novelist to know something of what was passing in her mind. She could not help thinking how differently Sam Swinford would have behaved ; what a merry party they would have been ; how many pretty shops they would have visited what ices at Fiona's they would have enjoyed ; what water- parties, what theatres, what gaiety ! Sam Swinford would not have left Walter to initiate everything on a trip of this kind; he would have been foremost with his pleasant suggestions, his passing jokes, his ever-open purse, his genial thoughtfulness, his anticipations of every possible want or desire that would have occurred either to her or to Jenny.