And out came the laced cambric to absorb the gathering dew.

“There is something in this I do not understand,” said Frederic, setting a chair for himself close to hers.  “Are you really suffering?  I imagined that yours was a case of simple cold, and that Mrs. Mason advised you to remain indoors chiefly on account of the weather.  It is raining hard!”

“I am glad it is!” she replied, with the manner of one bereft of human sympathy, and extracting gloomy delight from the unison of nature with her morbid broodings.  “And my throat isn’t nearly so painful as I made Aunt Mary believe.  I did not want to go out.  Parties are an awful bore when one is sad-hearted.”

“You really must forgive me!” said Frederic, as she twitched her face away again at the laugh he could not suppress.  “But sadness and you should not be thought of in the same week.  Honestly, now! is not the inimitable fabric you sported for five minutes last night, at the bottom of what appears to you a fathomless abyss of woe?  Have you tried the efficacy of rational consolation in the thought of how many more parties there will be this winter to which you can wear it?  The Secretary of State is to give one in ten days, which is to be the sensation of the season.  That of to-night is, in comparison, as a caucus to a general convention.”

“I shall never put on the hateful thing again.  If Julia Cunningham chooses to bedizen herself in it, she is welcome to it—­flounces and all.  Yet I did like it!  I had hoped—­but no matter what!  You had better be going, Mr. Chilton.  Aunt and the rest of them wenl three-quarters of an hour ago.”

“Does a dress go out of fashion in so short a time?” persisted innocent Frederic, bent upon mitigating her sorrow.  “If my memory serves me aright, I have seen ladies wear the same ball-dress several times in the same winter.”

“You will never see this on me,” snapped Rosa, her eyes ominously fiery again.  “Did you hear me advise you of the lateness of the hour?”

“Suppose I decline appearing at all in the festal scene?” said the gentleman.  “I shall not be missed.  I will just run down and dismiss the carriage—­then, with your permission, will return and spend the evening here.”

Her cheeks looked as if they had been touched with wet vermilion, when he resumed his place near her, and the folds of the handkerchief in her hand hung more limply.

“I ought not to allow this sacrifice!” she faltered gratefully.  “Because I have the vapors, I have no right to keep you within reach of the infection.  It is shamefully, wickedly selfish!”

“It is no such thing!” he contradicted.  “If you would know the truth, I was, myself, averse to attending this ‘crush.’  But for your indisposition, I should hail with unmixed pleasure the chance that releases me from the obligation to form a part of the throng.  It is far more in consonance with my feelings to pass this, our last evening together, as we have spent so many others, in quiet talk at this fireside.  I had not supposed it possible that I could ever feel so much at home in a hotel—­a Washington caravansary especially—­as I have within the last three weeks.  Do you know, or have you not burdened your memory with such unimportant memoranda as the fact, that I must set my face Philadelphia-ward to-morrow?”