ller's heart ceased to beat.

Could this be true! These light, careless words from a young girl seemed
to shake the foundation of her life. Did she love the man, who for three
weeks had been a daily visitor in that sick room, whose voice had been
music to her, whose eyes had been so often lifted to hers in tender
gratitude. Could her heart have proved so cruelly rebellious? Then the
other impossible things the girl had hinted at. Elsie had not meant it
for cruelty, but still it was very cruel, to startle her with glimpses
of a heaven she never must enter. What was she but a poor orphan girl,
teaching in that school in order to pay for the tuition which had
refined and educated her into the noble woman she unconsciously was. Of
course Mr. Mellen was grateful for the care she had taken of his
beautiful sister, and that was all. Elsie was almost well now, and would
leave the school that term. After that there was little chance that she
would ever see Grantley Mellen again.

"What on earth are you thinking about?" questioned Elsie, still busy
with her grapes. "Just tell me if we are to be sisters,--and I'm set on
it--you shall know all my secrets; it'll be so nice to have some one
that won't tell,--and I'll know yours. To begin, dear old Bessie:
_somebody_ sent me these flowers, and I hate 'em. It's my way. So many
at once, it stifles me. I wish he could see 'em now; wouldn't he just
long to box my ears--there, that's my first secret."

"But who is the man, Elsie?" enquired Miss Fuller, really disturbed by
this first confidence; for the girl was her room-mate, and had been
placed particularly under her care.

"Oh, that's my second secret--I'll tell you that when you're Grant's
wife. You haven't told me about your own adorer yet."

"How could I? One does not talk of lovers till they come."

"Oh Bessie Fuller; what a fraud you are! Just as if he hadn't been under
this very window again and again: just as if the flowers that get into
our room, no one can guess how, did not come from him. Why, half the
girls in school have seen him prowling round here like a great,
handsome, splendid tiger!"

"What are you talking of, Elsie?"

"No matter; I shan't tell Grant, he must think himself first and
foremost--what a lovely sister-in-law you will make."

"Elsie, my dear girl----"

"Don't interrupt me--don't say you wouldn't have him: that you like the
other fellow better, and all that. I tell you Grant is a prince, and you
sh