remark (made historic now by comic papers) that “they never look under the table,” when asked what certain ladies had on. But this is trifling, and only applicable to dinner parties.

Mrs Ray Jefferson’s thoughts had not prevented her from taking stock of the other inmates of the room. One or two were lying on couches, but most of them seemed to prefer the low comfortable chairs, that were like rocking-chairs without the rockers.

No one spoke. They looked solemn and suffering, and appeared intent merely on the symptoms of distilled moisture on the visible portion of their persons.

“I think,” said Mrs Jefferson, “I shall go into the second room. I can stand some more heat.”

She made the remark, abstractedly, in the direction of her neighbour, who only looked at her in a bored and ill-tempered fashion, as befitted one who had gout without arched feet to display as compensation.

“You and I are the only hotel people here,” went on Mrs Jefferson, as she took up the glass of water and the head-cloth preparatory to moving away. Then she laughed again as she looked at her companion’s flushed countenance and generally distressed appearance. “What a comfort,” she said, “that we won’t look quite such objects at dinner-time! I always find a bath improves my complexion, don’t you?”

Mrs Markham gave an impatient grunt. “As if it mattered what one looks like in a bath!” she said. “Do you Americans live in public all your lives? You seem to be always thinking of your clothes, or your looks!”

Mrs Jefferson opened her lips to reply with suitable indignation, but the words were cut short by a gasp of astonishment, and lost themselves in one wondering, long-drawn monosyllable—“My—!”

The gouty sufferer also looked up, and in the direction of the doorway, and though she said nothing, her eyes expressed as much surprise as was compatible with a sluggish temperament, and a disposition to cavil at most things and persons that were presented to her notice.

The object on which the two pairs of feminine eyes rested was only the figure of a woman standing between the thick oriental curtains that partitioned off the dressing from the shampooing and douche rooms.

A woman—but a woman so beautiful that she held even her own sex dumb with admiration. She was tall, but not too tall for perfect grace; and slender, but with the slenderness of some young pictured goddess. She was dark, too, but with a pale clear skin that was more lovely than any dead blonde whiteness; and to crown her charms, she had long rippling hair of jet black hue that was parted from her brow and fell like a veil to her delicate arched feet, and through which the serious, darkly—glowing eyes looked straight at the wondering faces before her.

The pause she made before entering was brief, but not so brief that every eye there had not scanned enviously and wonderingly her perfect beauty—from the clear-cut, exquisite face and bare, beautifully—shaped arms, to the graceful ankles, gleaming white as sculptured marble through the veiling hair.

Mrs Jefferson first recovered speech.

“Who is she?” she whispered eagerly. “Not at our hotel I think. Looks like a walking advertisement of a new hair restorer. She’d be a fortune to them if she’d have her photograph taken so!”

The newcomer meanwhile advanced and took one of the chairs near Mrs Jefferson. That lady suffered strongly from the curiosity that is characteristic of her admirable nation. She re-seated herself for the purpose of studying the strange vision, and, not being in the least degree afflicted with English reticence, she set the ball of conversation going by an immediate remark:

“Had any of these baths before?”

The person addressed looked at her with grave and serious eyes.

“No,” she said; and her voice was singularly clear and sweet, but with something foreign in the slow accentuation of words. “I only arrived at this hotel last night.”

“Oh!” said Mrs Jefferson, “is that so? I thought I hadn’t seen you before. Come for your health?”

“Yes,” said the stranger, accepting a glass of water from the attendant, who had just come forward.

“Not gout, I suppose?” suggested Mrs Jefferson, conscious that there were arched feet in the world even more exquisite in shape and size than her own.

“Gout! Oh, no!” said the stranger, smiling faintly. “They say my nerves are not strong. I sleep badly, I am easily startled, and easily fatigued.” She paused a moment, and one delicate hand, glittering with rings, pushed back the dark weight of rippling hair from her brow. “I have had a great mental shock,” she said, quietly. “Such things require time... one cannot easily forget...”

Her eyes had grown dreamy and abstracted. The hand that had pushed back her heavy hair fell on her lap. She looked at it and its shining rings, and Mrs Jefferson’s sharp glance followed hers. Was there a plain gold circlet among that glittering array?—was the beautiful stranger wife or maiden?

“If any man saw her now!” she thought involuntarily. “My! I wouldn’t give much for his peace of mind afterwards! What owls she makes us all look!”

“Nerves are queer things,” she said aloud. “Can’t say I’m much troubled with them, except here,” and she moved her foot explanatorily. “Just that joint. It’s agony sometimes. Suppressed gout, you know. You wouldn’t think so to look at it, would you?”

“That the gout was—suppressed? certainly I should,” answered the stranger, smiling. “There is no external sign of it. I always thought gout meant large lumps, and swellings of the joints.”

“So it does,” said Mrs Jefferson, with an involuntary glance at the moist and crimson sufferer on her right. “But my form of it is different. It is much worse, but no one sympathises with me because it doesn’t look so bad as the other gout.”

“It is not often that people do sympathise with illness,” said the beautiful woman. “When we ourselves are well, we think suffering can’t be so very great after all, and when we are ill we are quite sure no one else has to bear so much pain. Human nature is essentially selfish. It is a natural incident of living at all that we should estimate our own life as more important than our neighbours.”

“Well,” laughed Mrs Jefferson, “if we sacrificed it to them, it might be a doubtful benefit. I often thank my stars I wasn’t born in the age of martyrs. If J. had been, I’m sure the very sight of the rack or the faggot would have made me swear anything.”

“The history of religions is a very curious history,” said the stranger in her low clear tones. “Looked at dispassionately, it has done very little for mankind in general, save to prove one fundamental truth that is more significant than any doctrine or dogma. That truth is the inherent need in all humanity of something to worship. From the highest to the lowest degrees of civilisation that need has made itself the exponent of external forms. It is the kernel of all religions.”

“A kernel that is surrounded with a very hard shell,” said Mrs Jefferson glibly. She liked discussions, and was accustomed to say she could talk on any subject—having indeed come from a country where women did talk on any subject, whether they were acquainted, with it or not. “I don’t think there is much spirituality in any modern religion,” she went on. “I surmise it’s dead. Science has got the upper hand of theology and means to keep it. People are not content now-a-days with being told ‘you must believe so and so.’ They want a reason for believing. You’re not a Romanist, are you?” she added suddenly.

“I—oh no,” said the stranger with a faint smile.

“I’m glad of that, for I was just going to say that the Church of Rome has done more to retard rational and spiritual progress than any other. I don’t believe in the