his lips, "How you come creeping behind one!—What is it, a message?" "Hist-st! Speak low." The voice was like the faint murmur of crickets on a hot summer's day. "The Duke has gone." "Gone? What! The devil he has!" "Sh-h!—not five minutes ago! A message came from the Tsar himself. He has just slipped away." The officer gazed straight ahead of him smiling, and bowed to a couple ascending the stair-case. His lips parted as if in greeting. "Did he send you to tell me?" "No, the Duchess. She has made some excuse and is receiving alone. No one suspects, not yet; but the guests must be diverted, or else—" "Be still, Boris, be still, you shake the leaves like a bull. When will he return?" "By midnight, Prince. Could you start the mazurka at once?" "Presently, Boris. Go and tell my mother I will—presently. The Countess is late, unaccountably late! Is the snow heavy to-night on the quay; are the sledges blocked? Hiss-st!—There she comes!" The trembling of the leaves ceased suddenly and the young officer leaned forward, his sword clanking, his eyes crossed and fixed on a vague white spot in the distant foyer. "She is coming! How slowly she moves! What a throng!—There, she comes, white and sweet like a lily, a flower!" The Prince waved his hand; his sword clanked again. "No, she doesn't see me; her eyes are on the ground—and her hair, it gleams like a crown." The two figures climbing the grand marble stair-case moved forward slowly, step by step, mingling with the flash and colour of the crowd, lost for a moment at the bend, then reappearing again. The man, evidently a general, was magnificent in his uniform; his breast regal with orders and medals, his grey head held high and his form stiff and straight. On his arm was the Countess, his daughter. She clung to him, her lips were smiling and her white robes trailed the marble behind her. She was like a young queen, charming and gracious, bowing to right and to left. As the groups drew aside to let her pass, they whispered together, looking up
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