cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward dark-
ness, they gathered themselves together in that sad-
dest and solemnest and most constrained of all
places, the great blank drawing-room which is the
chief feature of all continental summer hotels. There
they grouped themselves about, in couples and threes,
and mumbled in bated voices, and looked timid and
homeless and forlorn.

There was a small piano in this room, a clattery,
wheezy, asthmatic thing, certainly the very worst
miscarriage in the way of a piano that the world has
seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick
ladies approached it doubtingly, gave it a single
inquiring thump, and retired with the lockjaw. But
the boss of that instrument was to come, neverthe-
less; and from my own country--from Arkansaw.

She was a brand - new bride, innocent, girlish,
happy in herself and her grave and worshiping strip-
ling of a husband; she was about eighteen, just out
of school, free from affectations, unconscious of that
passionless multitude around her; and the very first
time she smote that old wreck one recognized that it
had met its destiny. Her stripling brought an
armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this
bride went "heeled," as you might say--and bent
himself lovingly over and got ready to turn the
pages.

The bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from
one end of the keyboard to the other, just to get her
bearings, as it were, and you could see the congre-
gation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then,
without any more preliminaries, she turned on all

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