The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance

wild with all regret." This I undertook to have delivered to her the same night, and promised to call upon her on the morrow, further to illuminate the situation, and to

rm sweet rain of joy that brings the flowers, and is but sister to the sun. They are, at the time of

uest thing I ever said in my life,"-a remark which may not

o control my impatient desire to call on Mademoiselle Sylvia Joy till it was fully noon.

s a nice kind boy," was the height of her passionate expression, and she was, naturally, a little disappointed at having an affectionate companion thus unexpectedly whisked off into space. Her only approach to anger was on the subject of his deceiving h

ecame in the course of a day or two even more intimate than many old friends. We took to each other instinctively, ev

t we dine

e lunched and

akfasted, lunched,

sion which, as you may imagine, it had needed no litt

ingly simple and distinguished in style, throwing up the lovely firm whiten

ryland of the theatre, actually to sit eating and drinking, quite in a real way, at my side. This, no doubt, will seem pathetically naive to most modern young men, who in this respect begin where I leave off. An actress! Great heavens! an actress is the first step to a knowledge of life. Besides, actresses off the stage are either brainless or soulful, and the choice of evils is a delicate one.

t," I said, in one of the medit

is made a little anxious for me by your evident implication that I didn't l

ee.' I think you would even be beautiful-well, I cannot ima

I'll have it framed. It would cheer me of a

l," I continued, beco

good as I'm

perhaps the beauty occ

m left her during the whole meal, once more enfolded her little ivory and black silk body with an embrace as real as though they had been

and bearing the legend "Sylvia Joy," No. 4, perhaps, or 5, but NOT No. 6; and a whole wonderful underworld of lace and linen and silk stockings, the counte

ve, a flower,-with a breath she endues them with immortal souls. How much, therefore, of herself must

en, when on that far afternoon in that Surrey garden I had said, "With such a

er, and that any one learned in the physiognomy of clothes would have been able

smile about?" she

the other day," I said, "which is quite irrelevant at the mome

replied, "but tell me the

lly bored with existence, he took it into his head to ramble incognito through his kingdom in search of his ideal wife,-'The Golden Girl,' as he called her. He had hardly set out when in a country lane he came across a peasant girl hanging out clothes to dry, and he fell to talk with her while she went on with her charming occupation. Presently he observed, pegged on the line, strangely incongruous among the other homespun garments, a wonderful petticoat

or it is usually old ladies who have the pre

ho had once lodged there and left them behind. Then the prince gave her a purse of gold in exchange for the finery, and on the waistband of the petticoat he read a beautiful name

point in it," in

afraid I've stupidl

what w

upon the p

s it?" she asked,

tticoat was, to be quite acc

ith quite a stormy blush. "I'm afraid you've

one of the precious stockings; and half opening it, I revealed to Sylvia's astonished eyes the cunning little frieze of Bacchus and Ariadne, followed b

' the dream will say, 'you will find a rose or an oak-leaf or an eagle's feather, or whatever it may be, on your pillow.' Well, I have brought this stocking-for which, if I might but use them, I have at the moment a stoc

I remember," she said frankly, and with a shade of sadness passing over her face. "I was spending a holiday with Jack Wentworth,-why, it must be nearly two years ago. Poor Jack! he was kill

idn't know. Let's come for a little st

tting my cheek with a kind little ha