But I'm willing you should use my name, darling, to subserve
your timidity. I'll answer this sweet letter this morning. I'm alone,
and now is a good time."

She looked about for her writing-materials, and suddenly remembered she
had left them in the school-room the evening previous. As she lightly
descended the stairs, the bell rang, and the hall door being open, she
came in full view of a gentleman standing on the marble steps e'er she
was aware, and in another moment he was at her side, exclaiming,

"Astonishing! Is it possible? Can this be Kate Prague?"

Annie blushed as she perceived his mistake, and hastened to rectify it.

"I am not Miss Prague," she said, "but a member of the family at
present. I think I have the honor of addressing Mr. Sheldon." He bowed
gracefully.

"The ladies are gone out for a short drive this morning. Will you be
pleased to wait their return in the drawing-room?"

He accepted the invitation and entered the apartment, offering, as he
did so, an apology for his mistake, which she acknowledged with another
rising blush.

"I think Dr. Prague received intelligence last evening that you would
not arrive till next week," she remarked, as they were seated in the
parlor. "Had they expected you sooner, I'm sure they would have been at
home to receive you."

"I did send a letter to that effect," he said; "but the improved
facilities of travelling have enabled me to reach the city sooner than I
anticipated."

A silence ensued. Annie felt ill at ease. She had received many hints of
the lofty, aristocratic notions of Frank Sheldon. She knew him to be
wealthy, and the prospective lover of Kate Prague; that is, Kate had
informed her that "Marion had been first designed for him; but by some
means that plan failed, and then mother married her to Hardin, and
Sheldon was left for her. She supposed she should marry him some time,
though she did not care a fig for him, he was so grave, and always
talking on literary subjects which she could not understand and
therefore mortally abhorred."

All this passed quickly through Annie's mind, and, rising, she said she
"thought the ladies would soon return; perhaps he could amuse himself
with the contents of the centre-table a brief while."

"O, yes!" he said politely. "I can ever pass time agreeably with books
and paintings." She courtesied and retired to her own apartment. "What a
vision of loveliness!" he mentally exclaimed when left alone. "I wonder
if