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 in my première, and socially everything was done to make me happy.

Mrs. James Llewellyn, whom, you no doubt remember, we met in Florence the winter of 18—, immediately after I reached New York arranged a reception for me, which was elegant in the extreme. But from that night dates my misery.

You ask her name?—Mildred Wallace. Tell me what she is like, I hear you say. Of graceful height, willowy and exquisitely molded, not over twenty-four, with the face of a Madonna; wondrous eyes of darkest blue, hair indescribable in its maze of tawny color—in a word, the perfection of womanhood. In half an hour I was her abject slave, and proud in my serfdom. When I returned to the hotel that evening I could not sleep. Her image ever was before me, elusive and shadowy.