ve been used to clever people, and decidedly prefer to look up to
a man?"

"What does he call you, Leslie?"

"Why, Leslie, to be sure, or Miss Bower. You would not have him say Mrs.
Garret yet?" And Leslie covered her face and laughed again, and reddened
to the tips of her fingers.

"Not 'Bonnie Leslie,' 'Jewel,' 'Angel,'" jested Mary, thrilling at the
echo of a certain low, fluttered voice, that had sounded in her own ears
and would wilfully repeat, "Winsome Mary," "Little Woman," "Witch!"

"No," Leslie replied, with honest frankness, "that would be speaking
nonsense; and if Hector Garret thinks nonsense that is bad enough."

"Do you remember how we talked sometimes of our husbands?"

"Yes, I do. They were all to be heroes."

"And you were to be courted on bended knees. Yes, Leslie, solicited
again and again; and when you yielded at last, it should be such an act
of grace that the poor fellow would be half mad with delight."

"I was mad myself. I was full of some song or bit of poetry. I tell you
again, Mary, if you have not found it out for yourself, real life is not
like a book. Hector Garret is not the man to beg and implore, and wait
patiently for a score of years. I wish you saw how he manages his strong
horse. He sits, and does not yield a hair's breadth. Though it paws and
rears, he just holds its head tight and pats its neck. Now, I want him
to check and guide me. I have been left a great deal to myself. Papa and
mamma are not young, and it appears to me that a single child is not
enough to draw out the sympathies of a staid, silent couple. They have
been very kind to me all my life, and I ought to be glad that they will
not miss me much. But although it was wrong, I have often felt a little
forlorn, and been tempted to have bad, discontented thoughts all by
myself. However, that is over, and I hope I'm going to be a good and
sensible woman now. And, Mary, I am so anxious to have your opinion upon
my crimson pelisse, because mamma does not profess to be a judge; and I
cannot be certain that it is proper merely on a mantua-maker's word and
my own taste. I would like to do Hector Garret credit; not that I can
really do so in any eyes but his own."

III.--THE NEW HOME.

Hector Garret had his girl wife at Otter, and very sunny her existence
was for the lustrum of that honeymoon. It was almost sufficient for her
to be at liberty, fairly installed in her castle in the air, a country
home. And its lord an