cried Julia.

"You know the price, dearest," said Nelly, throwing herself into her
arms.

"Well, who says I am not ready to pay it? There, that 's enough of
folly. Let us now think of something useful."

CHAPTER LIX. A VERY BRIEF DREAM.

Julia was seldom happier than when engaged in preparing for a coming
guest. There was a blended romance and fuss about it all that she liked.
She liked to employ her fancy in devising innumerable little details,
she liked the active occupation itself, and she liked best of all that
storied web of thought in which she connected the expected one with all
that was to greet him. How he would be pleased with this; what he would
think of that? Would he leave that chair or that table where she had
placed it? Would he like that seat in the window, and the view down the
glen, as she hoped he might? Would the new-comer, in fact, fall into
the same train of thought and mind as she had who herself planned and
executed all around him?

Thus thinking was it that, with the aid of a stout Dalmatian
peasant-girl, she busied herself with preparations for Augustus
Bramleigh's arrival. She knew all his caprices about the room he liked
to occupy. How he hated much furniture, and loved space and freedom; how
he liked a soft and tempered light, and that the view from his window
should range over some quiet, secluded bit of landscape, rather than
take in what recalled life and movement and the haunts of men.

She was almost proud of the way she saw into people's natures by the
small dropping preferences they evinced for this or that, and had an
intense pleasure in meeting the coming fancy. At the present moment,
too, she was glad to busy herself in any mode rather than dwell on the
thoughts that the first interval of rest would be sure to bring before
her. She saw that Jack Bramleigh was displeased with her, and, though
not without some misgivings, she was vexed that he alone of all should
resent the capricious moods of a temper resolutely determined to take
the sunniest path in existence, and make the smaller worries of life but
matter for banter.

"He mistakes me altogether," said she, aloud, but speaking to herself,
"if he imagines that I 'm in love with poverty and all its straits; but
I 'm not going to cry over them for all that. They may change me in many
ways. I can't help that. Want is an ugly old hag, and one cannot sit
opposite her without catching a look of her features; but she 'll no