uant face of a girl resembling Mrs. McVeigh. It was a picture of
her daughter.

"Only six weeks since I left her; yet, it seems like a year," she
sighed; and Fitzgerald Delaven, who had entered from the Lieutenant's
room, sighed ponderously at her elbow.

"Well, Dr. Delaven, why are you blowing like a bellows?" she asked,
with a smile of good nature.

"Out of sympathy, my lady," replied the young Irishman.

"Now, how can you possibly sympathize understandingly with a mother's
feelings, you Irish pretender?" she asked with a note of fondness in
her tones. "I sigh because I have not seen my little Evilena for six
weeks."

"And I because I am never likely to see that lovely duplicate of
yourself at all, at all! Ah, you laugh! But have you not noticed that
each time I am allowed to enter this room I pay my devotions to that
particular corner of the mantel?"

"A very modern shrine," observed the Countess; "and why should you not
see the original of the picture some day. It is not so far to
America."

"True enough, but I'll be delving for two years here in the medical
college," he replied with lamentation in his tone. "And after that
I'll be delving for a practice in some modest corner of the world, and
all the time that little lady will be counting her lovers on every one
of her white fingers, and, finally, will name the wedding day for a
better boy than myself, och hone! och hone!"

Both the ladies laughed over his comical despair, and when Lieutenant
McVeigh entered and heard the cause of it he set things right by
promising to speak a good word for Delaven to the little girl across
the water.

"You are a trump, Lieutenant; sorry am I that I have no sister with
which to return the compliment."

"She might be in the way," suggested the Countess, and made a gesture
towards the other picture. "You perceive; our friend need not come
abroad for charming faces; those at home are worth courting."

"True for you, Madame;" he gave a look askance at the Lieutenant, and
again turned his eyes to the photograph; "there's an excuse for
turning your back on the prettiest we have to offer you!" and then in
an undertone, he added: "Even for putting aside the chance of knowing
our so adorable Marquise."

The American did not appear to hear or to appreciate the spirit of the
jest regarding the pictures, for he made no reply. The Countess, who
was interested in everybody's affairs, wondered if it was because the
heiress was a