voice had tricks of sweetness, but why play them on him? The others came back; the bare, familiar, trivial opera began again. The box was large, and there was room for him to remain if he would sit a little behind and in the dark. He did so for half an hour, while Mr. Osmond remained in front, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, just behind Isabel. Lord Warburton heard nothing, and from his gloomy corner saw nothing but the clear profile of this young lady defined against the dim illumination of the house. When there was another interval no one moved. Mr. Osmond talked to Isabel, and Lord Warburton kept his corner. He did so but for a short time, however; after which he got up and bade good-night to the ladies. Isabel said nothing to detain him, but it didn’t prevent his being puzzled again. Why should she mark so one of his values—quite the wrong one—when she would have nothing to do with another, which was quite the right? He was angry with himself for being puzzled, and then angry for being angry. Verdi’s music did little to comfort him, and he left the theatre and walked homeward, without knowing his way, through the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome, where heavier sorrows than his had been carried under the stars.     

       “What’s the character of that gentleman?” Osmond asked of Isabel after he had retired.     

       “Irreproachable—don’t you see it?”      

       “He owns about half England; that’s his character,” Henrietta remarked.       “That’s what they call a free country!”      

       “Ah, he’s a great proprietor? Happy man!” said Gilbert Osmond.     

       “Do you call that happiness—the ownership of wretched human beings?”        cried Miss Stackpole. “He owns his tenants and has thousands of them. It’s pleasant to own something, but inanimate objects are enough for me. I don’t insist on flesh and blood and minds and consciences.”      

       “It seems to me you own a human being or two,” Mr. Bantling suggested jocosely. “I wonder if Warburton orders his tenants about as you do me.”      

       “Lord Warburton’s a great radical,” Isabel said. “He has very advanced opinions.”      

       “He has very advanced stone walls. His park’s enclosed by a gigantic iron fence, some thirty miles round,” Henrietta 

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