tranced recognition is. He turned, and saw a mask in Venetian costume, to whose shoulder was also fastened the little badge of ivy,
"One of us! Who, I wonder? He, too, cannot speak of her without betraying himself," thought Victor, as he swung round quickly, and glanced over the boxes. In one of them he saw what he sought: with black laces and azure silks sweeping about her, caught here and there with sprays of silver ivy, a woman masked, who, leaning her arm on the front of the box, and her cheek upon her hand, gazed down into the tumult of colour and of movement that made up the ball below. Her face was unseen, but the lips, exquisite as the lips of a Greuze painting, had a certain proud weariness on them; and in the bright richness of her hair, in the elegance of her hand and arm, in the languor and grace of her attitude and her form, there were sufficient sureties of the beauty that would be seen if the black mask that veiled it were removed.
The Venetian domino looked at her long, then, with a stifled sigh, turned away.
"You have loved her?" whispered Vane.
The domino started, and glanced at the ivy branch on Victor's arm.
"To my cost," he said bitterly, as he plunged
