The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-01-19

half a dozen years her senior and evi- dently her chaperon, tapping her furtiyely with her fan. aYou know how pocp1e watch your every movement and tkey will not believe
 "What does is matterf Lei her be happy in her own way,s says young man hurriedly to the pretty woman, stopping a second message from the fan. Indeed the girl has been so engrossed with Patti that the first warning has gone unheeded. Her eyes are full of passion ate delight tinctured with sadness-who is ever merry when he hears sweet mu- sic !"-her lips are slightly pared. Her gown is of costly white silk, broidered with pearls, andShe is older, graver, yet altogether strangely unaltered, since that time year ago, when she sat amidst the fragrant clover and watched the roses dying and listened, with far. off dreamy gaze, to the plaintive murmuring of the waves as they beat their foamy breasts against the cruel rocks far down below.
 Then her false love" sat beside her now. Her eyes grow dim. Slowly, as though some inward force compels her, she turns them from the stage and looks into the stalls below. There she sees him.
 Vera :" the voice comes 10 her vaguely, indistinctly as it were through hay mist. It is her cousin, Lady vynor's voice, and 1t awakes her to the necessity for calm. She IS still leaning on the cushions of the box, but now she draws herself up, and leans back, until she is so hidden by the curtain on her side that she is no longer visible to the stalls be- heath. Raising her hand she passes it hurriedly across her fore head.
 She is ill.," says Lord Digby hastily. 1 He is the young man who had taken her part moment since.
 "Ah. so she is.'' says Lady Vynor, in frightened way. "Nera, dearest'-
 It is only the heat," says the girl, compelling herself to speak by passion ate effort. It is really nothing She leans back again as if exhausted.
 "What is to be done?' says Lady Vynor helplessly, half rising from her seat. She is nervous woman, always on the look out for midnight confagrations and sud- den deaths.
 Nothing says Digby quickly. " The opera is nearly over Give her time to recover herself little. and then take her home. The heat is intense ii is no won- der she feels it."
 Indeed, Vera is ashen gray, but has by this time regained certain amount of l composure, and with it the knowledge that the old love upon which she had set such store is-dead: buried, lost, gone past all recall, in that one brief moment when her eyes had rested upon Stainer's.
 Digby, taking scent bottle from Lady Nynor, presses ii into Veras hand with out looking al her. The delicaey, the tenderness of the action falls warmly on the girfs bruised heart. How good he has been to her .-how sincerely he has loved her and obeyed her slightest behest for two long months, without reward or any hope of it.
 Twice, Vera had refused him; and twice he had taken her refusal very we'll, but with an evident determination to per severe in his suit. Being an Englishman he had declined to recognize defeat. And now. indeed, in this hour, does he ind his constancy crowned with success. To explain to you about Stainer. When his eyes had fully met hers and he is sat- isfied that the radiant beauty up above is in very truth the simple child whose love he had played with for while and then rlung oarelessly aside, he turns to the man next him:
 'Who is that girl in the box up theres" he says hoarsely.
 My dear fellow Not know the reign ing beauty of the hour ?" says his hiend, That is Miss Wriothesly, the most ex- quisite creature in England. recognized as sueh."
 "l have been abroad" stammers stainer, with poor attempt at indiffer- enoe. The scent of dying roses, the roar of a far-off 0 -ean is in his ears.
 An. just SO, says his friend. pity ingly. Greatest mistake in the world to go one foot out of town. They say trayelng enlarges the mind. It narrows II to my thinking. The sweet shady side ot Pail Mall and the Row will teach you all that ever you may wan, to know and a good deal more.'
 Tell me of Miss Wriothesly," inter- rup,s Stainer. impa,ien,ly.
 Don't you see my theory exemplihed straight through! you had stayed al home like sensible man you would not have had to ask the question. \ year dko SftC WAS unkuOWn. uCn IOTtunS found her. Some forgotten relation in Canada died and lei, her sole heiress to his enormous wealth; whereupon o,her relatives suddenly discovered they had for years been pining for her society. Her cousin, Lady Nynor (pres,y woman in the box with her), s~ooped down to the grange where the girl was buried alive :; and. bringing her up to town, flung her upon the world of fashion. A beautiful heiress is a rarity. Need say how mag nifics nt was her successT
 And the man with her? asks Stainer, with dry lips that almost refuse to speak for him. Vera has now withdrawn from the front of the box, and wild desire to rise and go to her, to see her again face to face, to hear her voice, is maddening him.
 "Tha, is Lord pigby. Good catch, too, and terribly epris in that quarter. Dare say she'll marry him after all. though she has refused him. of and on.