The King’s palace and gardens stretch along one end of the public park, and are but just across the street from the hotel where the Hohenwalds and the Americans were staying.  As the hotel was the first building on the left of the square, Carlton could see from his windows the illuminations, and the guards of honor, and the carriages arriving and departing, and the citizens of Athens crowding the parks and peering through the iron rails into the King’s garden.  It was a warm night, and lighted grandly by a full moon that showed the Acropolis in silhouette against the sky, and gave a strangely theatrical look to the yellow house fronts and red roofs of the town.  Every window in the broad front of the palace was illuminated, and through the open doors came the sound of music, and one without could see rows of tall servants in the King’s blue and white livery, and the men of his guard in their white petticoats and black and white jackets and red caps.  Carlton pulled a light coat over his evening dress, and, with an agitation he could hardly explain, walked across the street and entered the palace.  The line of royalties had broken by the time he reached the ballroom, and the not over-severe etiquette of the Greek court left him free, after a bow to those who still waited to receive it, to move about as he pleased.  His most earnest desire was to learn whether or not the Princess Aline was present, and with that end he clutched the English adjutant as that gentleman was hurrying past him, and asked eagerly if the Princess had recovered from her accident.

“No,” said the officer; “she’s able to walk about, but not to stand, and sit out a dinner, and dance, and all this sort of thing.  Too bad, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Carlton, “very bad.”  He released his hand from the other’s arm, and dropped back among the men grouped about the doorway.  His disappointment was very keen.  Indeed, he had not known how much this meeting with the Princess had meant to him until he experienced this disappointment, which was succeeded by a wish to find Miss Morris, and have her sympathize and laugh with him.  He became conscious, as he searched with growing impatience the faces of those passing and repassing before him, of how much the habit of going to Miss Morris for sympathy in his unlucky love-affair had grown of late upon him.  He wondered what he would have done in his travels without her, and whether he should have had the interest to carry on his pursuit had she not been there to urge him on, and to mock at him when he grew fainthearted.

But when he finally did discover her he stood quite still, and for an instant doubted if it were she.  The girl he saw seemed to be a more beautiful sister of the Miss Morris he knew—­a taller, fairer, and more radiant personage; and he feared that it was not she, until he remembered that this was the first time he had ever seen her with her hair dressed high upon her head, and in the more distinguished