vercast with angry-looking, threatening rain clouds. Within the little
parlor all was bright and cheerful.

Familiar voices were heard greeting Mrs. Gibson and the children, and
men's footsteps soon sounded upon the stairs. Leopold entered first,
and, advancing to Rosa, handed her a large bouquet of beautiful red
roses.

"Sweets to the sweet, roses to Miss Rosa," said he, as he bowed and
presented them.

"They are beautiful," she exclaimed.

"All roses are considered so," he remarked with a smile.

While this little byplay was going on, Quincy had approached Alice, who,
as usual, was sitting by the window, and placed in her hand a small
bunch of flowers. As he did so he said in a low voice, "They are
forget-me-nots. There is a German song about them, of which I remember a
little," and he hummed a few measures.

"Oh! thank you," cried Alice, as she held the flowers before her eyes in
a vain effort to see them. "The music is pretty. Can't you remember any
of the words?"

"Only a few," replied Quincy. Then he repeated in a low, but clear
voice:

"There is the sweet flower
They call forget-me-not;
That flower place on thy breast,
And think of me."

"Say, Quincy, can't you come over here and recite a little poem about
roses to Miss Very, just to help me out?" cried Leopold. "All I can
think of is:

"The rose is red,
The violet's blue--"

"Stop where you are," said Rosa laughingly, "for that will do."

Alice dropped the forget-me-nots, in her lap. The illusion was
dispelled.

The newly-completed chapters were next read, and quite a spirited
discussion took place in regard to the political features introduced in
one of them. Dinner intervened and then the discussion was resumed.

Alice maintained that to write about Aaron Burr and omit politics would
be the play of "Hamlet," with Hamlet left out; and her auditors were
charmed and yet somewhat startled at the impassioned and eloquent manner
in which she defended Burr's political principles.

When she finished Leopold said, "Miss Pettengill, if you will put in
your book the energetic defence that you have just made, I will withdraw
my objections."

"You will find that and more in the next chapter," Alice replied.

And the reading was resumed.

The angry, threatening clouds had massed themselves once more; the
thunder roared; the lightning flashed and the rain fell in torrents.

Leopold walked to the window and looked out. "