ed them together for me with
a long blade of grass.

"It is plain," said I, as I thanked her, "that you still care enough
about flowers to arrange them most sweetly. These look as if they were
sitting for their picture. I should like to paint them just as they
are."

"Can you paint?"

"A little. Cannot you?"

"No; I can't do anything."

"Shall we make a bargain, then?" I ventured to say, as she looked and
seemed so much like the poor baby the Doctor had called her. "We will
each of us try to do something for the other. If I succeed in painting
your flowers, and you succeed in following your directions, you shall
have the picture."

She blushed deeply, looked half ashamed and half gratified, but
altogether more alive than she had done till now, and finally managed to
stammer out: "It's too good an offer--too kind--to refuse; but it's more
than I deserve, a great deal. So I'll try to mind Dr. Physick, to please
you; and then--if you _liked_ to give me the picture, I should prize it
very much."

I nodded, laughed, went home, put the flowers in water on Julia's
work-table, read to her, and went into the heart of the town to do some
shopping for her. After our early dinner, I said I was a little tired;
and she drove with her husband. I took out my paper, brushes, and
palette, set Nelly's nosegay in a becoming light, and began to rub my
paints; when wheels and hoofs came near and stopped, and presently the
door-bell rang.

"Are the ladies at home?" asked a smooth, silvery, feminine voice, with
a peculiarly neat, but unaffected enunciation.

"No'm, he ain't," returned the portress, mechanically; "an' he's druv
Missis out, too. Here's the slate; or Miss Kitty could take a message, I
s'pose, without she's went out lately ago."

"Take this card," resumed the first voice, "if you please, to Miss
Morne, and say that, if she is not engaged, I should be glad to see
her."

I rose in some confusion, pushed my little table into the darkest corner
of the room, received the white card from Rosanna's pink paw, in which
it lay like cream amidst five half-ripe Hovey's seedlings, read "Miss
Dudley" upon it, told Rosanna to ask her to please to walk in, and took
up my position just within the door, in a state of some palpitation.

In another minute a gray-haired, rather tall and slight, and very
well-made lady, with delicate, regular, spirited features, was before
me, telling me with a peculiar kind of earnest cordiality, and