our contemporary that a marriage is likely to be arranged
between Captain De Stancy and Miss Power of Stancy Castle.'

Somerset pressed her hand. 'It disturbed me,' he said, 'though I did not
believe it.'

'It astonished me, as much as it disturbed you; and I sent this
contradiction at once.'

'How could it have got there?'

She shook her head.

'You have not the least knowledge?'

'Not the least. I wish I had.'

'It was not from any friends of De Stancy's? or himself?'

'It was not. His sister has ascertained beyond doubt that he knew
nothing of it. Well, now, don't say any more to me about the matter.'

'I'll find out how it got into the paper.'

'Not now--any future time will do. I have something else to tell you.'

'I hope the news is as good as the last,' he said, looking into her face
with anxiety; for though that face was blooming, it seemed full of a
doubt as to how her next information would be taken.

'O yes; it is good, because everybody says so. We are going to take a
delightful journey. My new-created uncle, as he seems, and I, and my
aunt, and perhaps Charlotte, if she is well enough, are going to Nice,
and other places about there.'

'To Nice!' said Somerset, rather blankly. 'And I must stay here?'

'Why, of course you must, considering what you have undertaken!' she
said, looking with saucy composure into his eyes. 'My uncle's reason for
proposing the journey just now is, that he thinks the alterations
will make residence here dusty and disagreeable during the spring. The
opportunity of going with him is too good a one for us to lose, as I
have never been there.'

'I wish I was going to be one of the party!... What do YOU wish about
it?'

She shook her head impenetrably. 'A woman may wish some things she does
not care to tell!'

'Are you really glad you are going, dearest?--as I MUST call you just
once,' said the young man, gazing earnestly into her face, which struck
him as looking far too rosy and radiant to be consistent with ever so
little regret at leaving him behind.

'I take great interest in foreign trips, especially to the shores of
the Mediterranean: and everybody makes a point of getting away when the
house is turned out of the window.'

'But you do feel a little sadness, such as I should feel if our
positions were reversed?'

'I think you ought not to have asked that so incredulously,' she
murmured. 'We can be near each other in spirit, when our bodies are far
apart