d?"

And there stood I with my brows enveloped by the flower-pot.

CHAPTER III.

I saw the Morgans were making a dead set to take me in. Sometimes it was
Miss Letitia, and sometimes Miss Sophia--and always the mother. To hear
that woman talk of her daughters, you would swear that two such were
never known on earth before. Their sweetness--their temper--their
beauty--the numbers of people that were in love with them--the hosts of
rich and handsome fellows they had rejected, and the decided turn both
of them had for a quiet country life, and the society of a
well-educated, intellectual man of a certain age. She was a wonderful
woman Mrs Morgan, and I really believe she thought she was speaking the
simple truth all the time. But it wouldn't do--I judged for myself, and
never took the least notice of all her hints and boastings. I tried to
have them less about the house than they used to be; but nothing would
keep them away--they always pretended it was for the sake of Martha
Brown--a very likely story that they should trouble their heads about my
uncle's anonymous contribution to the population returns, when his
veritable nephew and heir was to be had by hook or crook. But I don't
mean any disparagement by that to the poor little girl herself--far from
it--she was the nicest creature in the world, and really not so black as
I had thought; and she was now nearly twenty-one, and played and
sung--and such an excellent critic, too! I always read my writings to
her the moment they were finished, and she never found the slightest
fault in any of them. I had left my description of Maria Valentine de
Courcy incompleted for several years--for it is a long time now since
the foolish adventure of the flower-pot first showed me that she took a
tenderer interest in me than merely that of a cousin--and I now
determined to give my second chapter the finishing touch, and consult
her on the farther conduct of the story.

"Martha," I said, "I wish you would listen for a minute or two to what
I've written."

So she sat down in my study, and worked a flower in an Ottoman square,
and was evidently prepared to listen with the utmost attention.

"It is the rest of the second chapter."

"Oh, are you only there yet? I was in hopes you had come to the end of
the story."

To the end of the story! Could the girl be hinting that I ought to tell
her my mind; for I must tell you, I had so completely got over all
prejudice about her birth, th