enough to hear her, that she lived only
in the expectation of soon seeing you again."

"Nonsense!" scornfully; "it is only a month ago since I was staying
there, just before they went to London. By the bye, what brings them
home now? In the very beginning of their season?"

"_I_ don't know. And it is as well not to inquire perhaps. Baltimore and
my cousin, as all the world knows, have not hit it off together. Yet
when Isabel married him, we all thought it was quite an ideal marriage,
they were so much in love with each other."

"Hot love soon cools," says Miss Kavanagh in a general sort of way.

"I don't believe it," sturdily, "if it's the right sort of love.
However, to go back to your letter--which you haven't even deigned to
open--you _will_ accept the invitation, won't you?"

"I don't know," hesitating.

"Oh! I say, _do_ come! It is only for a week, and even if it does bore
you, still, as a Christian, you ought to consider how much, even in that
short time, you will be able to add to the happiness of your fellow
creatures."

"Flattery means insincerity," says she, tilting her chin, "keep all that
sort of thing for your Miss Maliphant; it is thrown away upon me."

"_My_ Miss Maliphant! Really I must protest against your accrediting me
with such a possession. But look here, _don't_ disappoint us all; and
you won't be dull either, there are lots of people coming. Dicky Brown,
for one."

"Oh! will he be there?" brightening visibly.

"Yes," rather gloomily, and perhaps a little sorry that he has said
anything about Mr. Browne's possible arrival--though to feel jealousy
about that social butterfly is indeed to sound the depths of folly; "you
like him?"

"I _love_ him," says Miss Kavanagh promptly and with sufficient
enthusiasm to restore hope in the bosom of any man except a lover.

"He is blessed indeed," says he stiffly. "Beyond his deserts I can't
help thinking. I really think he is the biggest fool I ever met."

"Oh! not the biggest, surely," says she, so saucily, and with such a
reprehensible tendency towards laughter, that he gives way and laughs
too, though unwillingly.

"True. I'm a bigger," says he, "but as that is _your_ fault, you should
be the last to taunt me with it."

"Foolish people always talk folly," says she with an assumption of
indifference that does not hide her red cheeks. "Well, go on, who is to
be at the Court besides Dicky?"

"Lady Swansdown."

"I like her too."

"But not