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"I 14” )V' iiiibitiflt filig, "It’s no good. I can’t marry him, and I won’t! \Ve have enough to live on, mummie dear, without my marrying a horrid old man." Dalia Nugent threw down her hair- bu‘ush with such violence that it bounce-d from the dressing-table to the floor, and her mother started and trembled. Her nerves were weaken- ed by long illness. Delia knew it; gen- erally she moved like a mouse. “My income dies with me,” said the invalid's soft voice from among the white shawls in the easy-chair, “and Colonel Raymond is not old,â€"he can- not be forty yet. I remember him as a youth. At that time he was not at all horrid; he was quite handsome, and had very pretty manners, my dear." "I dare say," Delia picked up the White Slllkl stockings from the bed and swung them round and round. “He may have been nice then, when he was ryoung, but now he's old and hor- zrid. \Vhy, he was a mans at Oxford when I was choking myself with the coral bells his father gave me for a christening present! Bah! I’ve no patience with the people who make such wills. It’s wicked; it's horriâ€" ble; it’s unnatural! Now, mum- mie darling, let me help! you‘ to your {room and send Slater to you. It’s too late for little mothers to be sit- ting up. I'll promise to see him, but I can't promise to do more than that.” “It's for your sake, my pet,” the mother answered as she rose wearin leaning on the strong, young arm that supported her to her room. "I should die more easily if I knew your future was secure." “You’re not going to die, my pre- cious \. precious," the girl answered choc Jilly; but she hit her lip to keep back the sudden tears. “You’re going to live and get real well once more. That’s what we came to the ;Rivleira for, you know, my dearest." When Miss Nugent came back to her room she finished her toilette rapidly. It was a pretty vision that showed in the long mirrorâ€"bright, fair hair, and a mutinous, charming face. \Vhen the white, transparent gown was on, the pearls round the pretty neck, the flowers adjusted on the slender figure, it was a vision that might have turned a hundred heads in a single evening, and none could have been astonished at the sudâ€" den turning. The Nugents were staying in a quiet tow-n some six miles from Cannes. To- night, Delia was to be taken to a grand reception, 'where she was to meet the man whom fate and her god- father had designed for her husband. The situation as set forthl in old Mr. Raymond’s will was simplicity itself. If Delia married Colonel Raymond, half the old man’s fortune was hers and half Colonel Raymond’s; if not, her share and half his went to the Society for the Free Distribution of India-Rubber Shoes Among the Naâ€" tives of the African Swamps. While Delia was cowering among her’ white fur-s in the carriage on the way to Lady Denbi-gh’s, where she was to dine and then attend the reception, a sudden thought struck her. She sat motionless during her six- mile drive, and, as the carriage door opened, she sprang out with a firm step, and a face alight with a new resolve. Lady Denbigh was her old school friend, newly married, and married, as it happened, to a man who had been Colonel Raymond’s col- lege chum. When the after dinner moment came, Delia, alone with her hostess, caught her by the hands and called- her her only friend and her dearest clear. . Lady Denbigh laughed and Delia un- Eolded her plan~her great idea. When Lord Denbigh joined them his wife was in convulsions of laughter in a great armchair, and Delia was It‘anding on the hearth-rug looking :arnestly in the mirror. ' " \Ve ought to be starting, my dear,’ he said. "\Vhat is this supreme, this lneffable joke which you are enjoy- lug?” "‘ I‘ll tell you as we go along f” his wife answered. "Delia isn’t coming with us, so we won’t stay long.~VVe‘re homing back to fetch her, and then we’ll go to the‘masked ball at the Casino des Fleurs. Delia has never been to a masked ball.” ‘.'But Raymond l", he said. , Delia blushed and stamped her foot. “Don’t be detestable," she said, smil- ing at him. "Do as your pretty lady tells you.” “ Mademoiselle is right," he answer- ed, and offered his arm to his wife. "\Ve will take v â€"â€"â€".-- .. high, rising. “Good-by, Miss White- gown! Try to amuse yourself until we return for you.” \Vhen Delia found herself alone she looked once more in the glass, and once more laughed softly to herself. Then she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and rang for Lady Denbigh’s maid to come to her. 0 t O Lord and Lady Denbigh drove up to the Casino des Fleurs and set foot on the red carpet of its steps. Their figures were shrouded in dominoes,and a third shrouded figure was with them. All three wore little black vel- vet masks. A fourth masked figure advanced to meet themâ€"a figure round whose broad shoulders the ready-made | domino, hastily bought, refused to meet. The white shirt-front and the black cloth showed plainly beneath. “Colonel Raymond, let me present you to Miss Nugent,” whispered Lady Denbigh. “ Now, nobody has any namesâ€"only you’ll know us because my domino is green, which these French people abhorâ€"and Miss Nu- gent’s is black, with silver lions on it. They’re the English Royal arms lions, so your loyalty insures your knowing them anywhere.” The party went slowly up the broad, redâ€"carpeted stairs. Groups of mask- ed dancers, gathered about the doors, stared as they passed. Colonel Raymond frowned under the mask. “I have never been to a masked ball before, he said to his companion. " Have you ’3" . “ Oh, yes,” Said the lady with the silver lions, "dozensâ€"thousands. Iâ€" I almost live at masked balls, don’t you know.” She had pitched her voice half a dozen notes above her own sweet, low key, and Spoke in a sharp, thin stac- cato. Lady Denbigh pinched her husband’s arm and laughed. ' " She is a born actress. She is act- ing well.” “ I‘ wish she hadn’t done it,” he re; joined. “Raymond is a good sort. it seems hardly fair.” The great ballroom was crowded. Monks and clowns; fisher-girls and shepherdesses, Queens of Hearts, bri- g-ands‘, Kings, Queens, and dominoes innumerable thronged the space un- der the galleries. The smooth floor, bare but for the passing of here and there a stray couple, gleamed invitâ€" ingly. The band broke into awaltz. Delia and her escortimade twio'steps not marry me now,” she thought, “ though it cost him ‘the half of his Kingdom.’ ” Then she felt secure and left the talk to him. And presently a little chill fell on her; for, cold and formal as his talk was, it was not the, talk of a fool or a dotard. Again and again she found him voicing sentiments which she could have echoed, and the severity, the quiet power of the man awe-d and, at the same time, charmed her. Round them the crowd of mer- rymakers surged and flowed and ebbK ed. The time for unmasking drew near, and Delia trembled a little. ' “ It would have been enough without that!” she thought, bitterly, seeing the stern set of the man’s lips below the mask. The signal to unmask came at sup- per. Lady Denbigh’s sweet, flushed face appeared from behind the black velvet, then her husband’s jolly, laugh- ing eyes. Then Raymond, after the hesitation of a moment, loosed the strings of his mask. He laid it on the table, and Delia looked on the face of I lthe " horrid old man.” She saw a strong face, a face in the prime of manhood, bronzed by the Eastern sun, a pair of good blue eyes, straight, well-cut features and the month she had watched all the evening, stern iin repose, yet softening to a singu- lar sweetness as he turned to answer ’some gentle. frivolity of Lady Den- bigh. Several young French officers, at- tracted by the grace of outline, which Delia’s domino had been powerless to disguise, were hovering near, await- ing the revelation which her unmask- ing should aford. “ Come, Delia,” said Lady Denbigh, " You’ll be glad to get that hot mask off. Remember, I’ve not seen your face since dinner." Delia drew a long breath and sud- denly tore off the mask. Her friend only just managed to suppress a lit. the cry, or rather she could not sup- press it, but she turned it, at the last moment, into a cough. Delia let the hood of her domino fall back, as she removed the mask, and the watchful young Frenchmen saw a dark head, crowned with black hair, coarse, ill-arranged, a swarthy face and deck, eyebrows black as gar- den slugs‘, and a mouth, straight, hard and much too red. The hair was parted in the middle, and strained tightly back above the earsâ€"little ,shell-pink cars which Delia had never ithought of disguising. Her eyes, too; forward and glided into the measure they flashed Clem. hazel fire at the of it. Not a word was spoken until the last chord of the waltz crashed like a heavy finis across the page of warm, pulsating life. Delia-turned to her partner. I "You can waltz,” she said abrupt- lly, and Raymond lifting his eyebrows under the black mask, replied: "You do me too much honor l’” The most amusing thing about a masked ball is that you may dance as many times as you like with one person. Delia danced fourteen times ivith Colonel Raymond. Lord and Lady Denbigh'had been married for three months, and, being singularly con- stituted seemed to enjoy dancâ€" ing with each other more than waltz- ing with other people. “ We are doing them a kindness,” said Delia in the high-pitched voice, “by dancing so much together. It leaves them free,â€"thc dear, silly things!” “Do you think it silly,” he asked, “ to prefer dancing with your wife. to dancing with anyone else 3’" “Absurd!” Delia laughed, noisily, but the laugh did not ring quite true. In the high, shirill voice she had chosen, Delia chattered to her cava- lier "all things in heaven and earth; and 0. all things she spoke flippantly irreverently, and when she could re- member to do it, with silly irration- ality. Her companion grew more and more silent. In his mind a growing conviction thrust out small talk. Ev- ery now and then he found himself making phrases about Miss Nugent. “Commonplace as cabbage, vulgar as a porkâ€"butcher’s daughter; flippant, frivolous, a flirt ;” and he grew more and more certain that this Miss Nu- gent, whom his father had desired him to marry, was intolerable. " Money,” she said, as they sat sip- ping pink " grenadines,” on the ver- anda, and looking out‘ on the many- colored lights, of the illuminated gar- dens. " 0h l” I would do anything for money! It is‘ the one thing worth having in this tiresome world. You‘ and I, Colonel Raymond, know that well encughl" She forced a. shrill tit- ter. It was hericrowning stroke. It took effect. “ You should speak for yourself, Miss Nugent,” he said sternly. And Delia, Colonel Raymond , in the hot hiding of her mask, hugged with us, of course,” said Lady Den-Iberself for her cunning, "He would young Lieutenant, who exclaimed, audibly: “ Yes, all English Women are flightsâ€"except as to eyes and ears.” Delia pulled the hood of her domino over the black hair and laughed. The Frenchmen turned away. Delia surprised herself in a sigh. When, ever since'you. can remember, peo- ple have turned round to look at you in the street because you were so pretty, it comes somewhat as a shock when eyes puss,over you, and turn away, 1ndifferent,â€"â€"condemn- atory even. After the unmasking, Colonel Raymond was more polite than before. Lord and Lady Den- bigh were in the highest spirits. Delia laughed a good deal. 6:3th she was tucked up in her carriage among her white furs she began to'cry. She cried all the way home. The basket on the front seat, which held her pretty tulle ballâ€" dress, jolted forward on her knees, and hurt her. She pushed it back angrily, and cried more than ever. When she reached home the pink sunrise glory was flushing the Alpcs Mau'itimes. She tore off her domino and scrubbed her face and neck till its own fairness reappeared. Then she slipped on a lace trimmed wrap- per and crept in to see if her mother was asleep. Mrs. Nugent was not asleep. So Delia sat down by her bed, and told her how much she had enjoyed herâ€" self. “But I was quite right about Col- onel Raymond. He is detestable," she said. “You look‘ flushed,” said the moth- er anxiously, “and your eyesâ€"what have you been doing to them?" "It was the sunrise,” said Delia, steeping to kriss her mother tenderly, so that her face was hidden in the shadow. “It shone in my eyes all the , way home." 0 I i The rosy flush of sunrise had died away, but the freshness ‘of early morning still lay on the land, pure as the memories of childhood. Colonel Raymond, lounging at ease among V the myrtle and lentiscus bushes on the rocky coast, the dark pine woods behind him, and before him the diamond-set sapphire of the Mediterranean. was suddenly aware of a human presence breaking the charm of the morning’s perfect still- ,5 -. i l l nose. The masked ball, and his meet- ing with the bride, the’ dark brewed, shrill-tongued bride whom his father had chosen for him, had left him sleepless. He had tossed through a restless hour, and then, through the pink glow of the sunrise, had wan- dered out along the Nice road, past the white sands and darkening fir trees of Jean de Pins, and so through the dusikiy orchards and by sleeping villas, to the wild easterm side of the Cap d'Antibcs. And there he rested, reflecting on many things; there, too, he met his fate. A girl in a gown of bright dank blue,â€"the color of a peacook where he is bluest,â€"came along the rugged path between the myrtles. Her hair shone like gold in the new sunlight, her hat hung in her hand,â€"a large white hat. She had stuck pink roses in its broad ribbon, and she came to- ward »him, unconscious of his pres- ence, swinging the hint by, its white strings, and singing; “ALn' ye are the laddie that gave me the Penny. The lad that I’ll lo’e till the day that I doe." . . . . . .Ja-m \‘izflfi‘bi'fflnlr' 122:2: .: Liam‘s": 3:»- '2‘. '1 .â€" '..‘E’~“ W,“ iounds very pretty,â€"-if you had loved er.” "Ahâ€"if! But it is you I love. 1 only met her once. I think she loath- ed me almost as much as I detested her." Delia’s heart gave a throb, half joy, half pain. "Poor girl," she said gently. Raymond laughed low and [kissed her smooth cheek. “Oh, love,” he said, "it is too hard, â€"to win you, and then. to leave you! But in the. very earliest of the New You}; Ishall come back, :and then “X'Vill you kiss me when you see me again i” asked Delia suddenly, looking earnestly at him, “wherever it is?" 'If you will.â€"if you are gracious enough to permit me toâ€"-â€"â€"" ‘It's a promise.” she said, and they strolled through the orchard toward their parting. O I C All the tenants were gathered to gather for the merrymaiking or Christmas Eve. Over the last Christmas the. shadow of death had lam thick and heavy, but this yeau the old hall was hung with garlands of eve.rgreen,â€"-holly, yew and laurel. â€"and every window ablaze with light. Raymond was nervously picturing his meeting with the shrill-voiced, black-haired lady whom his father’s. Her voice was soft and singularly last wishes had designed for him, and sweet. Colonel Raymond jumped up from his lentiscus bush; the girl saw him, stopped singing, passed him, and as she passed she bowed. - He raised his hat mechanically. He stood looking after her. She knew him, then! And he,â€"-could he pOSSibly have seen her before and for- gotten her? That ‘bright hair; that charming pro-file,â€"No; he could never have forgotten these; and yet there was something familiarâ€"â€" Colonel Raymond was a man of acâ€" tion. He made six strides and caught up with her. "I did not recognize you for the moment," he-said abruptly. She raised laughing eyes to his. "And do you recognize me now '2" she asked. “No; don’t begin to try to get out of it; you had forgotten me. My name is Carmichael,” so it was,â€"Delia Carmichael-Nugent, “and we have danced together once or twice, Colonel Raymond.” The spell of the morning was work- ing in his blood, and with it the spell of her bright beauty. “If I mightâ€"-â€"- Might I walk with you, Miss Carmichael 'l" he asked. wistfully. And together they pass- ed on among the myrtles and the gray rocks. , That morning is marked in Colonel Raymond's memory with the whitest of white. stones. She walked with him, she talked to him, in the lowest, most delightful voice in the world, of all things in heaven and earth, talked gently, gayly, reverently, and always charmingly. .She opened the storehouse of 'her mind to him, and let him see, in brief, bewildering: flashes, glimpses of the treasure-house of her soul. Of her heart he saw nothing on that morning. That came a fort- night later, when he strode through the pine woods, by the white sand and through the de-wy orchards, by the sleeping villas, to bid her goodâ€"by. They had not every day since that first day, at first by chance,â€"a chance tutored by Delia, afterward by design; a design formed and car- ried out by Raymond,â€"lastly by an unspoken agreement more dear than either. They sat on a fallen olive tree, amid the deep grass that gleamed wet with dew, and transfigured in the morning's level light. Andâ€"'â€" ,“I am going away to-morrow," he said. I ‘ She only turned her eyes and lookâ€" ed straight in his. ,He drew a quick breath. She look- ed at him teadily, and two large tears gathered in her eyes; slid over the soft lashes. and fell on the hands crossed in her lap. “Then you do care," he cried quick- ly,â€"incredulously almost,â€"â€"but hi:~ arms went round her. ' "'Why must you go 3!” presently. "Because my father desired me to keep this ih'ristmas at our own house. There is a girl,â€"â€"he wished me to marry hor,-â€"-and he wished me to entertain her and her mother at this season.” there any condition attached to your marrying her 2” she asked He laughed; “Nothing serious," he' said, "I lose a little money if Idon't. And so does she. That’s the worst of it. But I couldn’tâ€"oh, my dear. But I shall make it up to her in some other way.” "‘“l'he girl opened her lips .to speak. Then she closed them sharply, and lifted them to his to he kissed. "My father," he went on, "once lov- ed this girl’s mother, and he wished,â€" but it couldn’t be, and if he knows now he will understand. He wished me to marry her, and,â€"he loved old customs; he wished me to lead her out before the tenants on Christmas Day, and kiss her under the mistletoe, as a sign Itha‘t,â€"it sounds silly, does- n’t it i" the thought of the golden-haired girl Who had won his heart among the olwe gardens only comforted him by moments. The situation was, at best, an unfortunate one. Miss Nugent had arrived la'te,â€"too late for dinner; he should see her firsLin the ballroom, among the tenants. They all of them must know of the terms of_ his father’s will. \Vha't whisp- erings and nudgings, what sly smilesi what cover-t jestsâ€"â€" He shuddered, and his other guests found him an absent-minded, albeit a courteous, host. Lord and Lady Diembig'h alone seemed not to notice h‘l‘S abstraction. The moment was nearing. Raymond grew more and more nervous. He turned to his old college chum, Lord Denbigh, for sup‘ port. “Beastly nuisance, I know," said the peer cheerfully; “still you must go through with it,â€"â€"some way." _ The ballroom was crowded. Only in the middle, where the great bough of gray-green mistletoe swung from the hundred-lighted crystal chean-i delier, was an empty space.‘ The color of the mistletoe reminded Ray- mond of the olive gardens. He pass- ed from group to group, talking to old men who had known him as a boy, and to young man whom he had known as boys, when he and they went a-rabbiting together in his father’s woods, many a good year ago. Suddenly there was a stir near the door. Raymond turned, to see Lady Denbigh glide forward into the empty lighted space in the middle of the. room. “mm her came a girl in white, a girl with golden hair and eyes that shone,â€"his maid of the olives and the sunrise. He made three steps forward. "Your promise,” she whispered; “your promise." Ho stooped as she stood beneath :he mistletoe, and kissed her upturned ace. ' Then rose a storm of deafening cheers from the tenants. Through it all he felt her hand in his, and‘ heard as in“a dream Lady Denbigh’s voice saying, “Curtain! Curtain! This is Delia Nugent. Oh, what a charm-- ing end to the comedy! Curtain !” A few hours later he and she stood alone before the fire in the great hall. Mrs. Nugemt, tired with travel and happiness, had retired on Lady Denâ€" big'h’s arm. Lord Denbigh had sud- deiin experienced that strange longing which only a good cigar can assuage. The two were alone, and she had told him everything. "You do forgive me, don’t you?” she urged, clinging to his arm. “I do so love play-acting, and I thought you Were a horrid old man, and I didn’t want you to like me; only, as soon as I saw you I -knewâ€"-â€"” "And did you mean to meet me the next day?” he questioned, stroking her soft hair. She flashed indignant denial at him. _ “You know I didn't! No; that morning, and everything was entiri ly your doing.” "You didn’t wish me to like you themâ€"that first morning,â€"when we met among the myrtles 3” .“Of course not,” she answered, but she hid her face. “Perhaps,” he went on, laughing a little for pure happiness, and turning her face till her eyes met his, "per- haps you didn't wish me to like you now?” “Of course not," she answered, lightly. Then, as her eyes met his, she hid her face again on his shoul- deir. “And so all ends happily,” he went on,'~holdiog her closely, "and, we both have our fortunes, andâ€"â€"â€"“ "Ali, don’t," she cried, "as if the fotrtune mattered! l’m glad’of it, thoughâ€"because my mother is glad. But as for you and me! Oh, my dearl 1 am glad you loved me when you thought Iwas losing you a fortune, instead of bringing you one. It will be something to hold to my heart all my life long." "And as for my heart," he answerâ€" ed, "it is you I shall hold to my heart all my life longâ€"all our happy lives long, my darling l” The hall clock had struck the hour, and from beyond the park, across the frozen snbw, came the sweet jin- gle of the Christmas bells. She turned sweet, wet eyes on him. "-I don't deserve to be so happy." “No,” she said, looking out through “he said. "and God is Very good to the gray green of the olives; “it me 1" “kw-w“- ..gqy‘ my .i ‘ 1 .. -‘ *.‘;.’@:.‘L"3<TI;J¢), . i .. .‘aumrwm.o\.z.=ox~., if“, _:.~-.,:.-.t um. , .ma.’ ‘4“... on“ - VaWA;-:~, .. z‘w..a. w...- »- _ e. ., .g.. .