n to hum a love-song.

Margaret sighed. "If you could only see, my dear," she began gently,
"how much happier we should all be, if you and Peggy could only make up
your minds to make the best of it--"

"The best!" cried Rita, flashing into another mood, and coming to hover
over her quiet cousin like a bird of paradise. "Do I not make the best?
You are the best, Marguerite. I make all I can of you--except a
milliner; never could I do that."

"Listen!" she added, dropping on the floor by Margaret's side. "You see
me happy to-day, do you not? I do not frown or pout,--I can't see why I
should not, when I feel black,--but to-day is a white day. And why? Can
you guess?"

Margaret shook her head discreetly.

"I cannot do more than guess," she said, "but you seemed very much
pleased with the letter that came this morning."

Rita flung her arms round her. "Aha!" she cried. "We perceive! We drop
our dove's eyes; we look more demure than any mouse, but we perceive!
Ah! Marguerite, behold me about to give you the strongest proof of my
love: I confide in you."

She drew a bulky letter from her pocket. Margaret looked at it
apprehensively, fearing she knew not what.

"From my friend," Rita explained, spreading the sheets of thin blue
paper, crossed and recrossed, on her lap; "my Conchita, the other half
of my soul. You shall hear part of it, Marguerite, but other parts are
too sacred. She begins so beautifully: '_Mi alma_'--but you have no
Spanish yet; the pity, to turn it into cold English! 'My soul' has a
foolish sound. 'Saint Rosalie, Saint Eulalie, and the blessed Saint
Teresa, have you in their holy keeping! I live the life of a withered
leaf without you; my soul flies like a mourning bird to your frozen
North, where you are immured'--oh, it doesn't sound a bit right! I
cannot read it in English." Indeed, Margaret thought it sounded too
silly for her beloved language, but she said nothing, only giving a
glance of sympathetic interest.

"She tells me of all they are doing," Rita went on. "All day they sit in
the closed rooms, as the sun is too hot for going out; but in the
evening they drive, and Conchita has been allowed to ride on horseback.
Fancy, what bliss! Fernando was with her!"

Rita stopped suddenly, and Margaret, feeling that she must say
something, echoed, "Fernando?"

"Her brother," said Rita, and she cast down her eyes. "Also a friend of
mine,--a cousin on my mother's side; the handsomest person in Hava