't any bad news for me? Has any one heard from the
Colonel? Is he ill?"

"Pshaw!" said Marguerite, rising and throwing down her napkin.

She went to the window and looked out.

"It is time you were gone, little lady," said Mr. Raleigh.

She approached Mrs. Purcell and passed her hand down her hair.

"What pretty soft hair you have!" said she. "These braids are like
carved gold-stone. May I dress it with sweet-brier to-night? I brought
home a spray."

"Rite!" said Mrs. Laudersdale sweetly, at the door; and Rite obeyed the
summons.

In a half-hour she came slowly down the stairs, untwisting a long string
of her mother's abandoned pearls, great pear-shaped things full of the
pale lustre of gibbous moons. She wore a dress of white samarcand, with
a lavish ornament like threads and purfiles of gold upon the bodice, and
Ursule followed with a cloak. As she entered the drawing-room, the great
bunches of white azalea, which her mother had brought from the swamps,
caught her eye; she threw down the pearls, and broke off rapid dusters
of the queenly flowers, touching the backward-curling hyacinthine
petals, and caressingly passing her finger down the pale purple shadow
of the snowy folds. Directly afterward she hung them in her breezy hair,
from which, by natural tenure, they were not likely to fall, bound them
over her shoulders and in her waist.

"See! I stand like Summer," she said, "wrapped in perfume; it is
intoxicating."

Just then two hands touched her, and her father bent his face over her.
She flung her arms round him, careless of their fragile array, kissed
him on both cheeks, laughed, and kissed him again. She did not speak,
for he disliked French, and English sometimes failed her.

"Here is Mr. Heath," her father said.

She partly turned, touched that gentleman's hand with the ends of her
fingers, and nodded. Her father whispered a brief sentence in her ear.

"_Jamais, Monsieur, jamais!_" she exclaimed; then, with a quick gesture
of deprecation, moved again toward him; but Mr. Laudersdale had coldly
passed to make his compliments to Mrs. Heath.

"You are not in toilet?" said Marguerite, following him, but speaking
with Mr. Raleigh.

"No,--Mrs. Purcell has been playing for me a little thing I always
liked,--that sweet, tuneful afternoon chiding of the Miller and the
Torrent."

She glanced at Mrs. Purcell, saw that her dress remained unaltered, and
commenced pulling out the azaleas from her own.

"I