s eyes higher than her
face.

"Do you like my dress?" her glance seemed to ask.

"Wonderful!" his seemed to reply, as he stealthily put out his hand and
touched a soft fold of its white fluffiness.

I could hear him think, as she leaned into the curve of the Broadwood
and bent over the flowers--

'Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver?
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard i' the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
Oh, so white! oh, so soft! oh, so sweet is she!'

A footman entered, bearing the harp, which he placed on a table in the
corner. He disclaimed all knowledge of it, having probably been well
paid to do so, and the unoccupied girls gathered about it like bees
about a honeysuckle, while Patricia and Terence stayed by the piano.

"To think it may never be a match!" sighed Francesca, "and they are such
an ideal pair! But it is easy to see that the mother will oppose it, and
although Patricia is her father's darling, he cannot allow her to marry
a handsome young pauper like Terence."

"Cheer up!" said Bertie Godolphin reassuringly. "Perhaps some
unrelenting beggar of an uncle will die of old age next and leave him
the title and estates."

"I hope she will accept him to-night, if she loves him, estates or
no estates," said Salemina, who, like many ladies who have elected
to remain single, is distinctly sentimental, and has not an ounce of
worldly wisdom.

"Well, I think a fellow deserves some reward," remarked Mr. Beresford,
"when he has the courage to drive up in a hansom bearing a green harp
with yellow strings in his arms. It shows that his passion has quite
eclipsed his sense of humour. By the way, I am not sure but I should
choose Rose, after all; there's something very attractive about Rose."

"It is the fact that she is promised to another," laughed Francesca
somewhat pertly.

"She would make an admirable wife," Mrs. Beresford
interjected--absent-mindedly; "and so of course Terence will not choose
her, and similarly neither would you, if you had the chance."

At this Mrs. Beresford's son glances up at me with twinkling eyes, and
I can hardly forbear smiling, so unconscious is she that his choice is
already made. However, he replies: "Who ever lo