me the time. Just five minutes will do, and
then you can return to your charming sketch. Oh"--glancing at it--"how
exactly like it is--so perfect; what a sunset, and what firs! One could
imagine one's self in the Fairies' Glen by just looking at it."

"It is not the Fairies' Glen at all; it is that bit down by Gough's
farm," says Florence coldly. Of late she has not been so blind to Dora's
artificialness as she used to be.

"Ah, so it is!" agrees Dora airily, not in the least discomposed at her
mistake. "And so like it too. You are a genius, dearest, you are really,
and might make your fortune, only that you have one made already for
you, fortunate girl!"

"You want my advice," suggests Florence quietly.

"Ah, true; and about something important too!" She throws into her whole
air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence
knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and
she grows pale and miserable accordingly.

"Let me hear it then," she urges, leaning back with a weary sigh.

"I have just received this letter," says Mrs. Talbot, taking from her
pocket the letter Arthur had given her, and holding it out to Florence,
"and I want to know how I shall answer it. Would you--would you honestly
advise me, Flo, to go and meet him as he desires?"

"As who desires?"

"Ah, true; you do not know, of course! I am so selfishly full of myself
and my own concerns, that I seem to think every one else must be full
of them too. Forgive me, dearest, and read his sweet little letter, will
you?"

"Of whom are you speaking--to whose letter do you refer?" asks Florence,
a little sharply, in the agony of her heart.

"Florence! Whose letter would I call 'sweet' except Sir Adrian's?"
answers her cousin, with gentle reproach.

"But it is meant for you, not for me," says Miss Delmaine, holding the
letter in her hand, and glancing at it with great distaste. "He probably
intended no other eyes but yours to look upon it."

"But I must obtain advice from some one, and who so natural to expect it
from as you, my nearest relative? If, however"--putting her handkerchief
to her eyes--"you object to help me, Florence, or if it distresses you
to read--"

"Distresses me?" interrupts Florence haughtily. "Why should it distress
me? If you have no objection to my reading your--lover's--letter, why
should I hesitate about doing so? Pray sit down while I run through it."

Dora having seated herself,