ered.

"Seeing you reminds me, Roger," said she. "What do you suppose has
become of that little miniature I told you of? I was showing it to
Marguerite the other night, and have not seen it since. I must have
mislaid it, and it was particularly valuable, for it was some nameless
thing that Mrs. Heath found among her mother's trinkets, and I begged it
of her, it was such a perfect likeness of you. Can you have seen it?"

"Yes, I have it," he replied. "And haven't I as good a right to it as
any?"

He extended his arm for the case which Marguerite held, and so touching
her hand, the touch was more lingering than it needed to be; but he
avoided looking at her, or he would have seen that the late color had
fled till the face was whiter than marble.

"Your old propensities," said Mrs. McLean. "You always will be a boy. By
the way, what do you think of Mary Purcell's engagement? I thought she
would always be a girl."

"Ah! McLean was speaking of it to me. Why were they not engaged before?"

"Because she was not an heiress."

Mr. Raleigh raised his eyebrows significantly.

"He could not afford to marry any but an heiress," explained Mrs.
McLean.

Mr. Raleigh fastened the case and restored it silently.

"You think that absurd? You would not marry an heiress?"

Mr. Raleigh did not at once reply.

"You would not, then, propose to an heiress?"

"No."

As this monosyllable fell from his lips, Marguerite's motion placed
her beyond hearing. She took a few swift steps, but paused and leaned
against the wall of the gable for support, and, placing her hand upon
the sun-beat bricks, she felt a warmth in them which there seemed to be
neither in herself nor in the wide summer-air.

Mrs. Purcell came along, opening her parasol.

"I am going to the orchard," said she; "cherries are ripe. Hear the
robins and the bells! Do you want to come?"

"No," said Marguerite.

"There are bees in the orchard, too,--the very bees, for aught I
know, that Mr. Raleigh used to watch thirteen years ago, or their
great-grand-bees,--they stand in the same place."

"You knew Mr. Raleigh thirteen years ago?" she asked, glancing up
curiously.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Very well."

"How much is very well?"

"He proposed to me. Smother your anger; he didn't care for me; some one
told him that I cared for him."

"Did you?"

"This is what the Inquisition calls applying the question?" asked Mrs.
Purcell. "Nonsense, dear child! he was quite in