The bright days of September wane and fade, and October comes in bright and sunny.
Every day now Lady Vera looks for Lady Clive to come. Her spirits grow brighter at the thought.
Sitting in the grand drawing-room one pleasant evening, with Mrs. Vance nodding placidly in a corner, and the soft breeze fluttering the lace draperies at the open windows, she touches the keys of the grand piano, pouring out her sad young soul in plaintive melodies. Song after song thrills out upon the air, each one sadder and sweeter than the last, as though
"The anguish of the singer made the sweetness of the strain."
Very beautiful looks Lady Vera in her thin, black robe, with knots of pure white pansies at her throat and waist, very beautiful and girlish still, though she is almost twenty, and a woman's sorrow is written all over her lovely, mobile face, that rises like some fair, white lily above her somber robe.
Memory is busy at her heart to-night. She has forgotten the Clevelands for a little while, and is thinking of her princely-looking soldier lover far away beneath those American skies where her own young life was passed.
She loves him still. In vain the nobles of her father's land sue for her favor.
All her heart is given to that untitled lover who comes of a land
"Where they bow not the knee,
Save to One unto whom monarchs bow down."