im.

"What is it, Norman? Quick! The countess will think I am lost."

"May I go into your pretty rose-garden?" he asked.

She laughed.

"What a question! Certainly; you my go just where you please."

"She has forgotten her companion," he said to himself, "or she is not
about."

He went into the morning-room and through the long, open French window;
there were the lovely roses in bloom, and there--oh, kind, blessed
fate!--there was his beautiful Madaline, seated in the pretty trellised
arbor, busily working some fine point-lace, looking herself like the
fairest flower that ever bloomed.

The young girl looked up at him with a startled glance--shy, sweet,
hesitating--and then he went up to her.

"Do not let me disturb you," he said. "The duchess is engaged and gave
me permission to wait for her here."

She bowed, and he fancied that her white fingers trembled.

"May I introduce myself to you?" he continued. "I am Lord Arleigh."

A beautiful blush, exquisite as the hue of the fairest rose, spread over
her face. She looked at him with a smile.

"Lord Arleigh," she repeated--"I know the name very well."

"You know my name very well--how is that?" he asked, in surprise.

"It is a household word here," she said; "I hear it at least a hundred
times a day."

"Do you? I can only hope that you are not tired of it."

"No, indeed I am not;" and then she drew back with a sudden hesitation,
as though it had just occurred to her that she was talking freely to a
stranger.

He saw her embarrassment, and did his best to remove it.

"How beautiful these roses are!" he said, gently. "The duchess is
fortunate to have such a little paradise here."

"She ought to be surrounded by everything that is fairest and most
beautiful on earth," she declared, "for there is no one like her."

"You are fond of her?" he said.

She forgot all her shyness, and raised her blue eyes to his.

"Fond of her? I love her better than any one on earth--except perhaps,
my mother. I could never have dreamed of any one so fair, so bewitching,
so kind as the duchess."

"And she seems attached to you," he said, earnestly.

"She is very good to me--she is goodness itself;" and the blue eyes,
with their depth of poetry and passion, first gleamed with light, and
then filled with tears.

"We must be friends," said Lord Arleigh, "for I, too, love the duchess.
She has been like a sister to me ever since I can remember;" and he drew
nearer to the