us as soon as we returned
from Italy, and I was surprised to hear nothing from him. Were not you,
Kitty?"

"No, I was not at all surprised," said Kitty, rather sharply.

"I had a commission to execute for my friend," said Hugo, turning a
little towards her. "Mr. Vivian asked me to take charge of a parcel, and
to place it in your own hands; he was afraid that it would be broken if
it went by post. He told me that it was a little birthday remembrance."

He laid the parcel on a table beside the girl. He noticed that her
colour varied, but that she did not speak. Mrs. Heron's voice filled the
pause.

"How kind of you to bring it, Mr. Luttrell! Mr. Vivian always remembers
our birthdays; especially Kitty's. Does he not, Kitty?"

"Not mine especially," said Kitty, frowning. She looked at the box as if
she did not care to open it.

"Do let us see what it is," pursued Mrs. Heron. "Mr. Vivian has such
exquisite taste! Shall we open the box, Kitty?"

"If you like," returned Kitty. "Here is a pair of scissors."

"Oh, we could not think of opening your box for you; open it yourself,
dear. Make haste; we are all quite curious, are we not, Mr. Luttrell?"

Mr. Luttrell smiled a little, and toyed with his tea-spoon; his eyes
were fixed questioningly on Kitty's mutinous face, with its
down-dropped, curling lashes and pouting rose-leaf lips. He felt more
curiosity respecting the contents of that little box than he cared to
show.

She opened it at last, slowly and reluctantly, as it seemed to him, and
took out of a nest of pink cotton-wool a string of filagree silver
beads. They were very delicately worked, and there was some ground for
Vivian's fear that they might get injured in the post, for their beauty
was very great. Mrs. Heron went into ecstasies over the gift. It was
accompanied merely by a card, on which a few words were written: "For
Miss Heron's birthday, with compliments and good wishes from Rupert
Vivian." Kitty read the inscription; her lip curled, but she still kept
silence. Hugo thought that her eye rested with some complacency upon the
silver beads; but she did not express a tithe of the pleasure and
surprise which flowed so readily from Mrs. Heron's fluent tongue.

"Don't you like them, Kitty?" asked an inconvenient younger brother who
had entered the room.

"They are very pretty," said Kitty.

"Not so pretty as the ornament he sent you last year," said Harry. "But
it's very jolly of him to send such nice