the gay life of the present, I'll warrant," said
I, with a smile; "the playhouses, and the taverns, and the parks, and
Vauxhall, and the assembly-rooms; and all _that_ kind of thing."

"Why, yes, 'tis true. And I wish you were to go with me."

"Alas, I'm tied down here. Some day, perhaps--"

"What are you two talking of?" The interruption came in a soft, clear,
musical voice, of which the instant effect was to make us both start
up, and turn toward the fence, with hastened hearts and smiling faces.

Margaret stood erect, looking over the palings at us, backed by the
green and flowered bushes through which she and Fanny had moved
noiselessly toward the fence in quest of nosegays for the
supper-table. Fanny stood at her side, and both smiled, Margaret
archly, Fanny pleasantly. The two seemed of one race with the flowers
about them, though Margaret's radiant beauty far outshone the more
modest charms of her brown-eyed younger sister. The elder placed her
gathered flowers on the upper rail of the fence, and taking two roses,
one in each hand, held them out toward us.

We grasped each his rose at the same time, and our motions, as we
touched our lips with them, were so in unison that Margaret laughed.

"And what _were_ you talking of?" says she.

"Is it a secret any longer?" I asked Philip.

"No."

"Then we were talking of Phil's going to England, to be a great
architect."

"Going to England!" She looked as if she could not have rightly
understood.

"Yes," said I, "in a year from now, to stay, the Lord knows how long."

She turned white, then red; and had the strangest look.

"Is it true?" she asked, after a moment, turning to Phil.

"Yes. I am to go next June."

"But father--does he know?"

"I told him this afternoon. He is willing."

"To be sure, to be sure," she said, thoughtfully. "He has no authority
over you. 'Tis different with us. Oh, Phil, if you could only take me
with you!" There was wistful longing and petulant complaint in the
speech. And then, as Phil answered, an idea seemed to come to her all
at once; and she to rise to it by its possibility, rather than to fall
back from its audacity.

"I would gladly," said he; "but your father would never consent that a
Faringfield--"

"Well, one need not always be a Faringfield," she replied, looking him
straight in the face, with a kind of challenge in her voice and eyes.

"Why--perhaps not," said Phil, for the mere sake of agreeing, and
utterl