at bland autumn day, Clara
thought, in her wilful little heart, that the man looked too confident
and happy. She had no idea of settling down into a commonplace
engagement, sanctioned or unsanctioned. What business had he to look so
supremely contented? Did he not know that girls sometimes changed their
minds?

In short, Lady Clara was in a wilful mood, and could be provoking enough
when the fit came on her. Just now she was embroidering diligently. The
golden stamens of a superb cactus glowed out stitch by stitch, as her
needle flew in and out of its great purplish and crimson leaves.

"Why don't you look up, Clara? I haven't seen your eyes these ten
minutes."

"Indeed! Well, I'm too busy. Pray hand me a thread of that yellow silk."

"Not if I can help it, ladybird. It's very tiresome sitting here, only
to watch your sharp little needle as it drops color into that great
flower. One never gets a sight of your full face."

"Then you don't like the profile?" said Clara, demurely, and her needle
flashed almost into Hepworth's eyes as he bent over her. "That is just
what I expected. It isn't three days since you first pretended to care
for me."

"Pretended! Clara?"

"That was the word," answered Clara, holding her work at arms' length,
and examining it, with her head on one side, like a bird eyeing the
cherry he longs to peck at. "Lovely, isn't it?"

"I have been where you could gather armsful of them from the wayside,"
answered Hepworth. "That is well enough, of course, for silk and
worsted; but you never can get that mixture of crimson, purple and
glittering steel, that makes the flower so regal in the tropics; then
the soft tassel of pale gold, streaming out from the heart, and thrown
into relief by this exquisite combination of colors. Ah, some day I will
show you what a cactus really is, Clara."

"Perhaps," said the provoking girl, searching her work-basket for the
silk she wanted. "Who knows?"

A flash of color flew across Hepworth's forehead. The handsome fellow
never had given himself much to the study of women, and even that pretty
creature had the power to annoy him, mature man as he was. She saw that
he was vexed, and rather liked it; for if the truth must be told, a more
natural coquette never lived than Lady Clara.

"Are you beginning to doubt, Clara?"

"Doubt? Oh! not at all. I don't honestly believe that there ever was a
more perfect flower than that. See how the colors melt into each other;
t