The company scattered quickly when it was over to the opera or theater or to the rest of a quiet evening at home, for at the end enthusiasm of any kind has a chilling effect on the feelings.

None of the party understood this result, and yet all were, in their way, affected by the sudden fall of mental temperature.

Mr.Denning went to his library and took out his private ledger, a penitential sort of reading which he relished after moods of any kind of enjoyment.

Mrs.
Denning selected Ethel Rawdon for her text of disillusion.

She "thought Ethel had been a little jealous of Dora's dress," and Dora said, "It was one of her surprises, and Ethel thought she ought to know everything." "You are too obedient to Ethel," continued Mrs.Denning and Dora looked with a charming demureness at her lover, and said, "She had to be obedient to some one wiser than herself," and so slipped her hand into Basil's hand.