stage of affairs, Polly found it impossible to resist the loan of a pair of gold bands for the wrists, and Fanny’s white fan with the little mirror in the middle.

“I can put them in my pocket if I feel too much dressed,” said Polly, as she snapped on the bracelets; but after a wave or two of the fan, she felt that it would be impossible to take them off till the evening was over, so enticing was their glitter.

Fanny also lent her a pair of three-button gloves, which completed her content; and when Tom greeted her with an approving, “Here’s a sight for gods and men! Why Polly, you’re gorgeous!” she felt that her “fun” had decidedly begun.

“Wouldn’t Polly make a lovely bride!” said Maud, who was revolving about the two girls, trying to decide whether she would have a blue or a white cloak when she grew up and went to operas.

“Faith, and she would! Allow me to congratulate you, Mrs.—Sydney,” added Tom, advancing with his wedding reception bow, and a wicked look at Fanny.

“Go away! how dare you?” cried Polly, growing much redder than her rose.

“If we are going to the opera to-night, perhaps we’d better start, as the carriage has been waiting some time,” observed Fan, coolly, and sailed out of the room in an unusually lofty manner.

“Don’t you like it, Polly?” whispered Tom, as they went downstairs together.

“Very much.”

“The deuce you do!”

“I’m so fond of music, how can I help it?”

“I’m talking about Syd.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“You’d better try for him.”

“I’ll think of it.”

“Oh Polly, Polly, what are you coming to?”

“A tumble into the street, apparently,” answered Polly, as she slipped a little on the step; and Tom stopped in the middle of his laugh to pilot her safely into the carriage, where Fanny was already seated.

“Here’s richness!” said Polly to herself, as she rolled away, feeling as Cinderella probably did when the pumpkin-coach bore her to the first ball, only Polly had two princes to think about, and poor Cinderella, on that occassion, had not even one. Fanny didn’t seem inclined to talk much, and Tom would go on in such a ridiculous manner that Polly told him she wouldn’t listen, and began to hum bits of the opera. But she heard every word, nevertheless, and resolved to pay him for his impertinence, as soon as possible, by showing him what he had lost.

Their seats were in the balcony, and hardly were they settled, when, by one of those remarkable coincidences which are continually occurring in our youth, Mr. Sydney and Fanny’s old friend Frank Moore, took their places just behind them.

“Oh, you villain! you did it on purpose,” whispered Polly, as she turned from greeting their neighbours, and saw a droll look on Tom’s face.