ccomplished she became, the more glad he would be when he came to know
and like her. Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart and rising
tear, whether she was proficient enough in anything to surprise him when
they should become companions. Sometimes she tried to think if there
were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his interest more readily
than another. Always: at her books, her music, and her work: in her
morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she had her engrossing aim
in view. Strange study for a child, to learn the road to a hard parent's
heart!

There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer
evening deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre
house, and saw the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to it,
looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have slept
the worse if they had known on what design she mused so steady. The
reputation of the mansion as a haunted house, would not have been
the gayer with some humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its
external gloom in passing and repassing on their daily avocations, and
so named it, if they could have read its story in the darkening face.
But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and unaided: and
studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she loved
him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought.

Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day,
and still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down upon her
with a stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and
beauty into stone.

Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as she
folded and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her looks
an approving knowledge of its contents.

'Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,' said Susan, 'and I do say,
that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.'

'It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,' returned
Florence, with a mild correction of that young lady's familiar mention
of the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.'

Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on the face
of the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters great or
small, and perpetually waged war with it against society, screwed up
her lips and shook her head, as a protest against any recognition of
disinter