And when she did stand beside Cora, in the latter’s room, a moment later, her thought seemed warranted.  Cora, radiant-eyed, in high bloom, and exquisite from head to foot in a shimmering white dancing-dress, a glittering crescent fastening the silver fillet that bound her vivid hair, was a flame of enchantment.  Mrs. Madison, almost weeping with delight, led her daughters proudly, an arm round the waist of each, into her husband’s room.  Propped with pillows, he reclined in an armchair while Miss Peirce prepared his bed, an occupation she gave over upon this dazzling entrance, departing tactfully.

“Look at these,” cried the mother; “—­from our garden, Jim, dear!  Don’t we feel rich, you and I?”

“And—­and—­Laura,” said the sick man, with the slow and imperfect enunication caused by his disease; “Laura looks pretty—­too.”

“Isn’t she adorable!” Cora exclaimed warmly.  “She decided to be the portrait of a young duchess, you see, all stately splendour—­made of snow and midnight!”

“Hear! hear!” laughed Laura; but she blushed with pleasure, and taking Cora’s hand in hers lifted it to her lips.

“And do you see Cora’s crescent?” demanded Mrs. Madison.  “What do you think of that for magnificence?  She went down town this morning with seven dollars, and came back with that and her party gloves and a dollar in change!  Isn’t she a bargainer?  Even for rhinestones they are the cheapest things you ever heard of.  They look precisely like stones of the very finest water.”  They did—­so precisely, indeed, that if the resemblance did not amount to actual identity, then had a jeweller of the town been able to deceive the eye of Valentine Corliss, which was an eye singularly learned in such matters.

“They’re—­both smart girls,” said Madison, “both of them.  And they look—­beautiful, to-night—­both.  Laura is—­amazing!”

When they had gone, Mrs. Madison returned from the stairway, and, kneeling beside her husband, put her arms round him gently:  she had seen the tear that was marking its irregular pathway down his flaccid, gray cheek, and she understood.

“Don’t.  Don’t worry, Jim,” she whispered.  “Those bright, beautiful things!—­aren’t they treasures?”

“It’s—­it’s Laura,” he said.  “Cora will be all right.  She looks out for—­herself.  I’m—­I’m afraid for—­Laura.  Aren’t you?”

“No, no,” she protested.  “I’m not afraid for either of them.”  But she was:  the mother had always been afraid for Cora.

. . . .  At the dance, the two girls, attended up the stairway to the ballroom by a chattering covey of black-coats, made a sensational entrance to a gallant fanfare of music, an effect which may have been timed to the premonitory tuning of instruments heard during the ascent; at all events, it was a great success; and Cora, standing revealed under the wide gilt archway, might have been a lithe and shining figure from the year eighteen-hundred-and-one, about to dance at the Luxembourg.  She placed her hand upon the sleeve of Richard Lindley, and, glancing intelligently over his shoulder into the eyes of Valentine Corliss, glided rhythmically away.