“Ah! don’t forget her singing!” cried Margaret, unwittingly.

“Does she sing?” demanded the Captain.

“Yes! and wonderfully well for an amateur! She plays the mandoline also. I think Elinor is a little hard on her! Of course she is very young and unformed, but she has only just come out of a convent where she has been educated for the last ten years. What can you expect of a girl who has never been out in Society? I know that she is very good-natured, and has waited on baby as if she had been her servant!”

“Don’t you think we have had about enough of Miss Harriet Brandt?” said Elinor, “I want to hear what Ralph thinks of Heyst, or if he advises our going on to Ostende. I believe Ostende is much gayer and brighter than Heyst!”

“But we must wait now till Doctor Phillips joins us,” interposed Margaret.

“He could come after us, if Ralph preferred Ostende or Blankenburghe,” said Elinor eagerly.

“My dear ladies,” exclaimed Captain Pullen, “allow me to form an opinion of Heyst first, and then we will talk about other places. This seems pleasant enough in all conscience to me now!”

“O! you two are bound to think any place pleasant,” laughed Margaret, “but I think I must go in to my baby! I do not feel easy to be away from her too long, now that she is ailing. But there is no need for you to come in, Elinor! It is only just nine o’clock!”

“I would rather accompany you,” replied Miss Leyton, primly.

“No! no! Elinor, stay with me! If you are tired we can sit in the balcony. I have seen nothing of you yet!” remonstrated her lover.

She consented to sit in the balcony with him for a few minutes, but she would not permit his chair to be placed too close to hers.

“The waiters pass backward and forward,” she said, “and what would they think?”

“The deuce take what they think,” replied Captain Pullen, “I haven’t seen you for two months, and you keep me at arms’ length as if I should poison you! What do you suppose a man is made of?”

“My dear Ralph, you know it is nothing of the kind, but it is quite impossible that we can sit side by side like a pair of turtle doves in a public Hotel like this!”

“Let us go up to your room then?”

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