usband in a pretty house in
Mayfair.

Six months after Florence Delmaine's arrival, George Talbot had
succumbed to a virulent fever; and his widow, upon whom a handsome
jointure had been settled, when the funeral and the necessary law
worries had come to an end, had intimated to her young cousin that she
intended to travel for a year upon the Continent, and that she would be
glad, that is--with an elaborate sigh--she would be a degree less
miserable, if she, Florence, would accompany her. This delighted
Florence. She was wearied with attendance on the sick, having done most
of the nursing of the Hon. George, while his wife lamented and slept;
and, besides, she was still sore at heart for the loss of her father.
The year abroad had passed swiftly; the end of it brought them to Paris
once more, where, feeling that her time of mourning might be decently
terminated, Mrs. Talbot had discarded her somber robes, and had put
herself into the hands of the most fashionable dress-maker she could
find.

Florence too discarded mourning for the first time, although her father
had been almost two years in his quiet grave amongst the Hills; and,
with her cousin, who was now indeed her only friend, if slightly
uncongenial, decided to return to London forthwith.

It was early in May, and, with a sensation of extreme and most natural
pleasure, the girl looked forward to a few months passed amongst the
best of those whom she had learned under her cousin's auspices to regard
as "society."

Dora Talbot herself was not by any means dead to the thought that it
would be to her advantage to introduce into society a girl, well-born
and possessed of an almost fabulous fortune. Stray crumbs must surely
fall to her share in a connection of this kind, and such crumbs she was
prepared to gather with a thankful heart.

But unhappily she set her affection upon Sir Adrian Dynecourt, with his
grand old castle and his princely rent-roll--a "crumb" the magnitude and
worth of which she was not slow to appreciate. At first she had not
deemed it possible that Florence would seriously regard a mere baronet
as a suitor, when her unbounded wealth would almost entitle her to a
duke. But "love," as she discovered later, to her discomfiture, will
always "find the way." And one day, quite unexpectedly, it dawned upon
her that there might--if circumstances favored them--grow up a feeling
between Florence and Sir Adrian that might lead to mutual devotion.

Yet,