FANNIE R. FEUDGE.
A LOTOS OF THE NILE.
It was nine o'clock on a night of clear July starlight. The heat of the day had been intense, and all the guests of The Willows were assembled on the lawn, intent upon the effort of keeping cool, if such a thing were at all possible. A hopeless effort it seemed, however, for the heavy foliage of the trees hung quite motionless, and the fans which were plied unceasingly made the only possible approach to a breeze. Everything was so still that the voice of the river was distinctly audible as it fretted and surged along its rocky bed, distant at least a mile. The scene was full of the dim, mysterious look which makes summer starlight so fascinating. White dresses, shadowy faces, suggestive outlines of form and head, now and then the glimmer of an ornament: after one had looked long enough it was even possible to tell who was who, but at first the voices were the only clue to recognition. Behind the group rose the house, with light streaming from its lace-draped windows, the pictures and globe-like lamps of the deserted drawing-room making a charming effect.
Everybody had been silent for some time—that is, for half a minute, which seems a long time under such circumstances—when Mrs. Lancaster's voice broke the stillness. "Oh for a whiff of mountain-air or a sea-breeze!" she said. "I came to spend two weeks with you, dear Mrs. Brantley, and I have spent a month—who ever did leave The Willows when they meant to do so?—but I really must be thinking of taking flight. Suppose we get up a party for the White Sulphur?—it is always so tiresome to go away by one's self. Who will join it? Eleanor, will you?"
"I am not going to the White Sulphur this year," answered Eleanor Milbourne.
"Not going to the White Sulphur!" repeated Mrs. Lancaster in a tone of surprise. Then she laughed. "How stupid I am!" she said. "Of course I might have known that the temptation to break the pledge of total abstinence from flirtation would be too great in that paradise of flirtation. Besides, Mr. Brent's yacht is homeward bound, is it not?"
"I am not aware that there is any connection between Mr. Brent's yacht and my decision about the White Sulphur," answered Miss Milbourne haughtily. Then she turned to the person next her, a recumbent figure lying at full length on the grass. "I don't know anything of which one grows so weary as of watering-place life when one has seen much of it," she said. "Its pettiness, its routine, its vapidity, its gossip, all oppress one like a hideous nightmare. I don't think I shall ever go to a watering-place again."
"Take care!" said the recumbent. "Don't make an abstinence pledge of that kind: you will only be tempted to break it, for what will you do with yourself in summer?"
"I should like to travel. I am possessed with an intense desire to see the world and the wonders thereof."