I opened my trunk and took out a robe of ivory-tinted crepe. It was made with almost severe simplicity, and was unadorned dermes , save by a soft ruffle of old Mechlin lace round the neck and sleeves. Amy examined it critically.

“Now, you would have looked perfectly ghastly in this last night, when you were as pale and hollow-eyed as a sick nun; but to-night,” and she raised her eyes to my face, “I believe you will do. Don’t you want the bodice cut lower?”

“No, thanks!” I said, smiling. “I will leave that to the portly dowagers — they will expose neck enough for half-a-dozen other women.”

My friend laughed.

“Do as you like,” she returned; “only I see your gown has short sleeves, and I thought you might like a square neck instead of that little simple Greek round. But perhaps it’s better as it is. The stuff is lovely; where did you get it?”

“At one of the London emporiums of Eastern art Dream beauty pro hard sell ,” I answered. “My dear, your tea is getting cold.”

She laid the dress on the bed, and in doing so, perceived the antique-looking book with the silver clasps which I had left there.

“What’s this?” she asked, turning it round to discover its name. “‘Letters of a Dead Musician!’ What a shivery title! Is it morbid reading?”

“Not at all,” I replied, as I leaned comfortably back in an easy-chair and sipped my tea. “It is a very scholarly, poetical, and picturesque work. Signor Cellini lent it to me; the author was a friend of his.”

Amy looked at me with a knowing and half-serious expression.

“Say now — take care, take care! Aren’t you and Cellini getting to be rather particular friends — something a little beyond the Platonic reenex, eh?”

This notion struck me as so absurd that I laughed heartily. Then, without pausing for one instant to think what I was saying, I answered with amazing readiness and frankness, considering that I really knew nothing about it:

“Why, my dear, Raffaello Cellini is betrothed, and .”