lady again began to show certain premonitory signs of drooping, when suddenly they were both aroused by the well known click of a latchkey in the door, and in another moment Mr. Sylvester’s voice was heard in the hall, saying, in tones whose cheery accents made his wife’s eyes open in surprise—
“Welcome home, my dear.”
“They have come,” murmured Mrs. Sylvester rising with a look of undeniable expectation. Had Paula not been a beauty she would have remained seated.
“Yes, we have come,” was heard in hearty tones from the doorway, and Mr. Sylvester with a proud look which Bertram long remembered, ushered into their presence a young girl whose simple cloak and bonnet in no wise prevented Mrs. Sylvester from recognizing the somewhat uncommon beauty she had been led to expect.
“Paula, this is your cousin Ona, and—Ah, Bertram, glad to see you—this is my only nephew, Mr. Sylvester.”
The young girl, lost in the sudden glamour of numerous lights, shining upon splendors such as she may have dreamed of over the pages of Irving’s Alhambra, but certainly had never before seen, blushed with very natural embarrassment, but yet managed to bestow a pretty enough greeting upon the elegant woman and handsome youth, while Ona after the first moment of almost involuntary hesitation, took in hers the two trembling hands of her youthful cousin and actually kissed her cheek.
“I am not given to caresses as you know,” she afterwards explained in a somewhat apologetic tone to her husband; “and anything like an appeal for one on the part of a child or an inferior, I detest; but her simple way of holding out her hand disarmed me, and then such a face demands a certain amount of homage, does it not?” And her husband in his