u."

"My dear, you don't know where she lives," Cecilia reminded her.

"Leave me to discover it!" Emily answered hotly. "Perhaps Mr. Mirabel
knows. I shall ask Mr. Mirabel."

"I thought you would find a reason for returning to Mr. Mirabel,"
Francine remarked.

Before Emily could reply, one of the maids entered the room with a
wreath of roses in her hand.

"Mr. Mirabel sends you these flowers, miss," the woman said, addressing
Emily. "The boy told me they were to be taken to your room. I thought it
was a mistake, and I have brought them to you here."

Francine, who happened to be nearest to the door, took the roses from
the girl on pretense of handing them to Emily. Her jealous vigilance
detected the one visible morsel of Mirabel's letter, twisted up with the
flowers. Had Emily entrapped him into a secret correspondence with her?
"A scrap of waste paper among your roses," she said, crumpling it up in
her hand as if she meant to throw it away.

But Emily was too quick for her. She caught Francine by the wrist.
"Waste paper or not," she said; "it was among my flowers and it belongs
to me."

Francine gave up the letter, with a look which might have startled Emily
if she had noticed it. She handed the roses to Cecilia. "I was making
a wreath for you to wear this evening, my dear--and I left it in the
garden. It's not quite finished yet."

Cecilia was delighted. "How lovely it is!" she exclaimed. "And how
very kind of you! I'll finish it myself." She turned away to the
conservatory.

"I had no idea I was interfering with a letter," said Francine; watching
Emily with fiercely-attentive eyes, while she smoothed out the crumpled
paper.

Having read what Mirabel had written to her, Emily looked up, and saw
that Alban was on the point of following Cecilia into the conservatory.
He had noticed something in Francine's face which he was at a loss to
understand, but which made her presence in the room absolutely hateful
to him. Emily followed and spoke to him.

"I am going back to the rose garden," she said.

"For any particular purpose?" Alban inquired

"For a purpose which, I am afraid, you won't approve of. I mean to ask
Mr. Mirabel if he knows Miss Jethro's address."

"I hope he is as ignorant of it as I am," Alban answered gravely.

"Are we going to quarrel over Miss Jethro, as we once quarreled over
Mrs. Rook?" Emily asked--with the readiest recovery of her good humor.
"Come! come! I am sure you are as anxio