Miss Montgomery called as Isabel and Gwynne were sitting down to luncheon at two o'clock. She was not in the best of tempers, for she had renewed her youth briefly the night before, her old admirers had shown her much gallant attention, and if she had gone home with a song in her heart and a flame in her eyes, she had been but the more conscious of the wooden spoon upon awakening. She had risen with no very keen regret for her vanished claims upon men long since married and consoled, for she had never been what is called a marrying girl, but with her mind inclined to gloomy meditation upon lost opportunities far more dear. She had never ceased to believe that, the fates conspiring, she might have become one of the great musicians of the world; for although she was willing to admit the defe
