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Dusk stole through the windows: the music ceased and the tea-hour was over. The carriages were departing, bearing the gay people who went away laughing, calling last words to one another, and, naturally, quite unaware that a young man, who, five days before, had adopted them and called them "his own," was lying in a darkened room above them, and crying like a child upon his pillow.

During the tea-hour his assiduous courtesy left scarcely a particular in which Henry Carroll, who, as before, occupied a seat opposite to him, could render himself of use. He could hardly address a word to her without interrupting her companion.

"I could not tell, mother," replied Mercy, indifferently; "for it was just their tea-hour, and I did not stay a minute, only just to say, How d'ye do, and Good-evening. But Mr. White says she is very lonely; people don't go to see her much: so I should think she would be very glad of somebody her own age in the house, to come and sit with her. She looks very ill, poor soul.

He wanted to have a little conversation with Oswald's sister; and he was compelled by politeness to give her up in favour of Arthur Berkeley. However, he made up for it when he returned, and monopolised the pretty little visitor himself for almost the entire tea-hour.

He had known slight twinges of it himself, and had often ministered to its qualms in others. It was hardly stronger than the faint gnawing which recalls the tea-hour to one who has lunched well and is sure of dining as abundantly; but it gave a purpose to the purposeless, and helped many hesitating spirits over the annual difficulty of deciding between Deauville and St. Moritz, Biarritz and Capri.

I had often in the distance yearned for the security of a light-house. Yet I now looked about on our comfortable parlor with a longing eye. I recalled the pleasant tea-hour when there were no visitors; I thought of the fun the boys and girls would have this coming winter, and I wished father had not been so precipitate in securing that vacant place.

"He is wondering why I am delaying to infuse my tea, for Tom likes his drop tea as well as his mistress." "Then I must not detain you longer," said Caroline, knowing that Mrs. Trigg did not like to be put past her tea-hour. "Mamma says that, if convenient, we are to drink tea with you some night soon, and my cousins are quite anxious to be invited also."

Again I am told the host managed to illumine his refusal with a smile. He would take no tea the doctor's orders. The surprising pair entered at the height of my tea-hour and were served to an accompaniment of stares from the ladies present. To this they appeared oblivious, being intent upon their conference. His lordship was amiable to a degree.

The glass-domed "palm-room" of the Grand Continental Hotel Magnifique in Rome is of vasty heights and distances, filled with a mellow green light which filters down languidly through the upper foliage of tall palms, so that the two hundred people who may be refreshing or displaying themselves there at the tea-hour have something the look of under-water creatures playing upon the sea-bed.

With the tea-hour now other callers were turning up, and he got away on the plea of his wanting so to think it all over. He hoped again he hadn't too queer a grin with his assurance to her, as if she would quite know what he meant, that he had been thrilled to the core.