there's our Harry! I am sure a girl must
be difficult, if he doesn't suit her for a beau," said the good
gentleman.

"Oh, Mr. Endicott is all well enough!" said Rose; "only, you observe,
not precisely to me what you were to the lady you call Polly,--that's
all."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Van Astrachan. "Well, to be sure, that does make
a difference; but Harry's a nice fellow, nice fellow, Miss Rose: not
many fellows like him, as I think."

"Yes, indeed," chimed in Mrs. Van Astrachan. "I haven't a son in the
world that I think more of than I do of Harry; he has such a good
heart."

Now, the fact was, this eulogistic strain that the worthy couple were
very prone to fall into in speaking of Harry to Rose was this morning
most especially annoying to her; and she turned the subject at
once, by chattering so fluently, and with such minute details of
description, about the arrangements of the rooms and the flowers and
the lamps and the fountains and the cascades, and all the fairy-land
wonders of the Follingsbee party, that the good pair found themselves
constrained to be listeners during the rest of the time devoted to the
morning meal.

It will be found that good young ladies, while of course they have all
the innocence of the dove, do display upon emergencies a considerable
share of the wisdom of the serpent. And on this same mother wit and
wisdom, Rose called internally, when that day, about eleven o'clock,
she was summoned to the library, to give Harry his audience.

Truth to say, she was in a state of excited womanhood vastly becoming
to her general appearance, and entered the library with flushed cheeks
and head erect, like one prepared to stand for herself and for her
sex.

Harry, however, wore a mortified, semi-penitential air, that, on
the first glance, rather mollified her. Still, however, she was not
sufficiently clement to give him the least assistance in opening the
conversation, by the suggestions of any of those nice little oily
nothings with which ladies, when in a gracious mood, can smooth the
path for a difficult confession.

She sat very quietly, with her hands before her, while Harry walked
tumultuously up and down the room.

"Miss Ferguson," he said at last, abruptly, "I know you are thinking
ill of me."

Miss Ferguson did not reply.

"I had hoped," he said, "that there had been a little something more
than mere acquaintance between us. I had hoped you looked upon me as a
friend."

"I did