urgh gaily.

"He shall have it if he wants it," said Miss Bezac--"that is if _I_'ve
got it,--though I rather guess he's got it himself,--I'm sure I don't
know what he hasn't got. And it don't strike me he looks as if he
wanted it, either, if I _had_. But it's funny I should and not the
doctor--though to be sure most things are,--and _he_'s gone to 'the
butterfly's ball and the grasshopper's feast.'"

"The grasshopper's feast being just now announced," said Mrs. Somers
stepping forward, "I shall hope to set the flowers free from their
natural enemies without more delay."

"I shall not confess to that!" said Mr. Linden under-tone. "But will
you come, Miss Faith--the insects are all gone--

'Save the few that linger, even yet,
Round the Alyssum's tuft and the Mignonette.'"

The midge's prompt action had perhaps disappointed several other
people. Dr. Harrison at any rate contrived with Miss Essie to be the
immediately preceding couple in the walk to the supper-room.

"I'm glad of some refreshment!" said the doctor; "butterflies cannot
live on the wing. Linden! have you been singing all the evening, in the
character of a midge?"

"No," said Mr. Linden--"all the singing I have done has been in my own
character."

"I am glad to hear it. By the way," said Dr. Harrison as they reached
the supper-room and paired off from their respective charges,--"I am
sorry to hear that Pattaquasset has no hold on you, Linden."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Linden,--an "indeed" which might refer to the
doctor's sorrow, or the supposed fact.

"Nay I know nothing about it!" said the doctor lightly as he attacked
the supper-table--"but Miss Derrick tells me it is true that your heart
is in another place."

"Dr. Harrison!" Mr. Linden said, with a momentary erectness of
position. But he said no more; turning off then towards Faith with her
oysters. And the gentle respect and quick attention with which she was
served, Faith might feel, and take note of--yet not guess that its
peculiar tone this night was warring, hand to hand, with the injustice
done her name. The doctor had unwittingly betrayed at least one point
of talk held over the Rhododendrons--furnished a clue he dreamed not
of; and stirred a power of displeasure which perhaps he thought Mr.
Linden did not possess.

Faith did not indeed guess anything from the manner of the latter to
her, although she felt it; she felt it as his own, kind and watchful
and even affectionate; but l