always gave her more than her price because she rolled up puffs so exquisitely.” And stopping to aid the deft girl in substituting the lavender feather for the red rose in her hair—she forgot to ask any more questions.
“Ona,” remarked her husband, coming into the room on his way down to dinner— Mrs. Sylvester never dined when she was going to any grand entertainment; it made her look flushed she said—“I am not in the habit of troubling you about your family matters, but have you heard from your father of late?”
Mrs. Sylvester turned from her jewel-casket and calmly surveyed his face. It was fixed and formal, the face he turned to his servants and sometimes—to his wife. “No,” said she, with a light little gesture as though she were speaking of the most trivial matter. “In one respect at least, papa is like an angel, his visits are few and far between.”
Mr. Sylvester’s eyebrows drew heavily together. For a man with a smile of strange sweetness, he could sometimes look very forbidding. “ When was he here last?” he inquired in a tone more commanding than he knew.
She did not appear to resent it. “Let me see,” mused she. “When was it I lost my diamond earring? O I remember, it was on the eve of New Year’s day a year ago; I recollect because I had to wear pearls with my garnet brocade,” she pettishly sighed. “And papa came the next week, after you had given me the money for a new pair. I have reason to remember that , for not a dollar did he leave me.”
“Ona!” exclaimed her husband, shrinking back in uncontrollable surprise, while his eyes flashed inquiringly to her ears in which two noble diamonds were brilliantly shining.
“O,” she cried, just raising one snowy hand to those sparkling ornaments, while a faint blush, the existence of which he had sometimes