hair, and silken blonde mustache
artistically curled. Surely a charming picture of youth and beauty on
both sides, and yet if Mr. Gilbert had seen a cobra di capella coiled up
beside the girl he loved, he could hardly have turned sicker with
jealous fear.

"Laurence Thorndyke," he thought blankly "of all the men in the wide
world, what evil fortune has sent Laurence Thorndyke here!"

CHAPTER III.

MR. LAURENCE THORNDYKE.

The little dog Frollo, curled up beside his mistress, was the first to
see and greet the newcomer. He rushed forward, barking a friendly
greeting, and the young lady looked up from the book she was reading,
the young gentleman from the face he was reading at the same moment, and
beheld the dark figure in the doorway.

Norine Bourdon sprang to her feet, blushing violently, and came forward
with outstretched hand. It was the first time he had ever seen her
blush--like that--the first time her eyes had fallen, the first time her
voice had faltered. She might be glad to see him, as she said, but all
the old, frank, childish gladness was gone.

"I have taken you by surprise," he said, gazing into her flushed face
and shrinking eyes, "as I did once before. I get tired of New York and
business very suddenly sometimes, and you know I have a standing
invitation here."

"We are very glad--_I_ am very glad to see you, Mr. Gilbert," Norine
answered, but with an embarrassment, a restraint altogether new in his
experience of her. "We missed you very much after you went away."

The young man on the sofa, who all this time had been calmly looking and
listening, now took an easier position, and spoke:

"Six-and-twenty-years experience of this wicked world has taught me the
folly of being surprised at anything under the sun. But if I had not
outlived the power of wondering, centuries ago, I should wonder at
seeing Mr. Richard Gilbert out of the classic precincts of Wall street
the first week of December. I suppose now you wouldn't have looked to
see _me_ here?"

He held out a shapely, languid hand, with a diamond ablaze on it. The
lawyer touched it about as cordially as though it had been an extended
toad.

"I certainly would not, Mr. Thorndyke. I imagined, and so did Mr. Darcy,
when I saw him last, that you were in Boston, practicing your
profession."

"Ah! no doubt! So I was until a month ago. I suppose it never entered
your--I mean his venerable noddle, to conceive the possibility of my
grow