er from Margaret,
which urged her strongly to return. "But I know you don't want me
now--that is, you can't have me--and where else could I stay? The
Doctor _hates_ Lucian--he may pretend, but he _does_. If I should
stay at the rectory, Mrs. Moore would be sure to say, how
_pleasant_ for Lucian and I to read poetry on the veranda, because
that is what she and Middleton used to do when they were engaged.
But Lucian and I don't want to read any poetry on verandas.

GARDA."

"DEAR MARGARET,--Lucian has gone for the night, and there's nothing
else to do, so I thought I would write to you. Mrs. Lowndes has
just been in. She brought a daguerreotype of Mr. Lowndes, taken
when he was young, and she says she knows exactly how I feel,
because she used to feel just the same; when she was at the window,
and saw 'Roger' coming down the street, the very calves of her legs
used to quiver, she says. Roger must have been stout--at least he
is in the daguerreotype, and he wore glasses.

"Lucian is painting me; but I only wish I could paint _him_. Oh,
Margaret, he _is_ so beautiful!

GARDA."

"DEAREST MARGARET,--I'm so glad I am alive, it's so nice to be
alive. People say life's dreadful, but to me it's perfectly
delicious every single minute. I thought I would tell you how happy
I was before going to bed,--I love to _write it down_.

GARDA."

The Doctor went up to Charleston again. He was much displeased with the
course things were taking, he spoke with a good deal of severity to
Sally Lowndes.

Sally, who was soft-bodied as well as soft-hearted (her figure was a
good deal relaxed), shed tears. Then, recovering some spirit, she wished
to know what the Doctor had expected _her_ to do? It was true that that
sweet Garda had left off her lessons (up to this time she had "had
instruction," that is, teachers had arrived at fixed hours); but Sally
was decidedly of the opinion that a girl who was so soon to be married
should be relieved at least of "_school-room_ drudgery."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Doctor; "she should be kept even more
closely to her books. Your ideas are provincial and ridiculous, Sally; I
don't know where you obtained them."

"From my mother," answered Sally, with a pink flush of excitement in her
faded cheeks. "From my grandmother too--who was yours also. It is _you_
who are changed, Reg