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 She blushed at her rudeness, and endeavored to cover it.

"I feel as happy as a girl at her first ball," she gurgled.

"And I am as happy as a man in love," he replied, voicing the valentine.

"Why, I thought a man in love was always a most unhappy creature?"

"No, not so," he smiled.

Anxious to break the rather awkward thread of the conversation, she turned toward the room. "We must be quiet. Mr. Red is going to begin."

The piano now attacked by a stout lady, whose gown resembled a purple toga, gave forth in rather mechanical time, the familiar strains from the "Water Nymph Suite." The 1830 poet gloomed and glowered, turning his inspired orbs upon the conscious Victoria.

Mr. Red exclaimed, in liquid tones, half-recitation, half-song.

The Japanese curtain parted, the slim girl in Greek attire reaching to the knee, like the Spartan 108