er had assisted her maiden aunt's lodger to copy
his manuscript with as mature a gravity as she would have displayed
to-day.

"I hope," said Theodora, when, after their sight-seeing was over, she
stood on the pavement before the door in Broome street, her nice little
hand on Denis Oglethorpe's arm, "I hope you will let me come to see you
again, Miss Gower."

Priscilla, standing upon the door-step, smiled down on her blooming
girl's face, a smile that was a little like moonlight. All Priscilla's
smiles were like moonlight. Theo's had a delicious glow of the sun.

"Yes," she said, in her practical manner. "It will please me very much
to see you, Miss Theodora. Come as often as you can spare the time."

She watched the two as they walked down the street together, Theo's
black feather glossy in the gaslight, as it drooped its long end against
Oglethorpe's coat, and as she watched them, she noticed even this trifle
of the feather, and the trifling fact that though Theo was almost regal
in girlish height, she was not much taller than her companion's
shoulder. It was strange, she thought afterward, that she should have
done so; but even while thinking it strange in the afterward that came
to her, she remembered it all as distinctly as ever, and knew that to
the last day of her life she would never quite forget the quiet of the
narrow, dreary street, the yellow light of the gas-lamps, and the two
figures walking away into the shadow, with their backs toward her, the
girl holding Denis Oglethorpe's arm, and the glossy feather in her black
hat drooping its tip upon his shoulder.

CHAPTER IV.

THEO'S DIARY.

Up-stairs, in a sacred corner of the chamber Lady Throckmorton had
apportioned to her, Theodora North kept her diary. Not a solid,
long-winded diary, full of creditable reflections upon the day's events,
but, on the contrary, a harmless little book enough--a pretty little
book, bound in pink and gold, and much ornamented about the corners, and
greatly embellished with filagree clasps. Lady Throckmorton had given it
to her because she admired it, and, in a very natural enthusiasm, she
had made a diary of it. And here are the entries first recorded in its
gilt-edged pages:

_December_ 7.--Mr. Oglethorpe was so kind as to remember his promise
about showing me the lions. Enjoyed myself very much. Miss Priscilla
Gower went with us. She is very dignified, or something; but I think I
like her. I am sure I like her,