her head.

Edward Ashton was an old bachelor cousin of Florence's, who, having
earned the title of oddity, in general society, availed himself of it to
exercise a turn for telling the truth to the various young ladies of his
acquaintance, especially to his fair cousin Florence. We remark, by the
by, that these privileged truth tellers are quite a necessary of life to
young ladies in the full tide of society, and we really think it would
be worth while for every dozen of them to unite to keep a person of this
kind on a salary, for the benefit of the whole. However, that is nothing
to our present purpose; we must return to our fair heroine, whom we
left, at the close of the last conversation, standing in deep revery, by
the window.

"It's more than half true," she said to herself--"more than half. Here
am I, twenty years old, and never have thought of any thing, never done
any thing, except to amuse and gratify myself; no purpose, no object;
nothing high, nothing dignified, nothing worth living for! Only a parlor
ornament--heigh ho! Well, I really do believe I could do something with
this Elliot; and yet how dare I try?"

Now, my good readers, if you are anticipating a love story, we must
hasten to put in our disclaimer; you are quite mistaken in the case. Our
fair, brilliant heroine was, at this time of speaking, as heart-whole as
the diamond on her bosom, which reflected the light in too many
sparkling rays ever to absorb it. She had, to be sure, half in earnest,
half in jest, maintained a bantering, platonic sort of friendship with
George Elliot. She had danced, ridden, sung, and sketched with him; but
so had she with twenty other young men; and as to coming to any thing
tender with such a quick, brilliant, restless creature, Elliot would as
soon have undertaken to sentimentalize over a glass of soda water. No;
there was decidedly no love in the case.

"What a curious ring that is!" said Elliot to her, a day or two after,
as they were reading together.

"It is a knight's ring," said she, playfully, as she drew it off and
pointed to a coral cross set in the gold, "a ring of the red-cross
knights. Come, now, I've a great mind to bind you to my service with
it."

"Do, lady fair," said Elliot, stretching out his hand for the ring.

"Know, then," said she, "if you take this pledge, that you must obey
whatever commands I lay upon you in its name."

"I swear!" said Elliot, in the mock heroic, and placed the ring on h