elle?"

"Because the girl is a nobody--less than nobody. There is an unpleasant
kind of mystery about her birth."

"How is that? Her uncle, Captain Sedgewick, seems to be a gentleman."

"Captain Sedgewick is very well, but he is not her uncle; he adopted her
when she was a very little girl."

"But who are her people, and how did she fall into his hands?"

"I have never heard that. He is not very fond of talking about the
subject. When we first came to know them, he told us that Marian was only
his adopted niece; and he has never told us any more than that."

"She is the daughter of some friend, I suppose. They seem very much
attached to each other."

"Yes, she is very fond of him, and he of her. She is an amiable girl; I
have nothing to say against her--but----"

"But what, Belle?"

"I shouldn't like you to fall in love with her."

"But I should, mamma!" cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had
absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation. "I should like uncle
Gil to love Marian just as I love her. She is the dearest girl in the
world. When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who
dressed the Christmas-tree--every bit; and she played the piano for us
all the evening, didn't she, mamma?"

"She is very good-natured, Lucy; but you mustn't talk nonsense; and you
ought not to listen when your uncle and I are talking. It is very rude."

"But! I can't help hearing you, mamma."

They were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome
red-brick house of the early Georgian era, which had been the property of
the Listers ever since it was built. Without, the gardens were a picture
of neatness and order; within, everything was solid and comfortable: the
furniture of a somewhat ponderous and exploded fashion, but handsome
withal, and brightened here and there by some concession to modern
notions of elegance or ease--a dainty little table for books, a luxurious
arm-chair, and so on.

Martin Lister was a gentleman chiefly distinguished by good-nature,
hospitable instincts, and an enthusiastic devotion to agriculture. There
were very few things in common between him and his brother-in-law the
Australian merchant, but they got on very well together for a short time.
Gilbert Fenton pretended to be profoundly interested in the thrilling
question of drainage, deep or superficial, and seemed to enter
unreservedly into every discussion of the latest invention or improvement
in agricultural m