und her. Here now she stoops to lift
with gentle touch a drooping head, lest in its slumber some defiling
earth come near it; and here she stands to mark a spider's net,
brilliant with dews from heaven. A crafty thing to have so fair a
home!--And here she sighs.

"Well, if he doesn't come, what matters it? A stranger cannot claim
regret. And yet what fun it would have been! what fun! (Poor lily, what
evil chance came by you to break your stem and lay your white head
there?) Perhaps--who knows?--he might be the stupidest mortal that ever
dared to live, and then--yet not so stupid as the walls, and trees, and
shrubs, while he can own a tongue to answer back. Ah! wretched slug,
would you devour my tender opening leaves? Ugh! I cannot touch the slimy
thing. Where _has_ my trowel gone? I wish my ears had never heard his
name,--Luttrell; a pretty name, too; but we all know how little is in
_that_. I feel absurdly disappointed; and why? Because it is decreed
that a man I never have known I never shall know. I doubt my brain is
softening. But why has my tent been pitched in such a lonely spot? And
why did he say he'd come? And why did John tell me he was good to look
at, and, oh! that best of all things--_young_?"

A sound,--a step,--the vague certainty of a presence near. And Molly,
turning, finds herself but a few yards distant from the expected guest.
The fates have been kind!

A tall young man, slight and clean-limbed, with a well-shaped head so
closely shaven as to suggest a Newgate barber; a long fair moustache, a
long nose, a rather large mouth, luminous azure eyes, and a complexion
the sun has vainly tried to brown, reducing it merely to a deeper
flesh-tint. On the whole, it is a very desirable face that Mr. Luttrell
owns; and so Molly decides in her first swift glance of pleased
surprise. Yes, the fates have been more than kind.

As for Luttrell himself, he is standing quite still, in the middle of
the garden-path, staring at this living Flora. Inside not a word has
been said about her, no mention of her name had fallen ever so lightly
into the conversation. He had made his excuses, had received a hearty
welcome; both he and Massereene had declared themselves convinced that
not a day had gone over the head of either since last they parted. He
had bidden Mrs. Massereene good-night, and had come out here to smoke a
cigar in quietude, all without suspicion that the house might yet
contain another lovelier inmate. Is t