of your slightest command is to obey."

It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas,
the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow
very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and
sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that,
strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm
flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have
foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the
number of specimens! Alas! they were all in the press. But, a happy
thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried
ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few
minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat
down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got
them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens
had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the
distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the
heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by
the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr.
Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant
half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his
moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in
two minutes, no, one."

What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they
had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit
their parishioners? There they were, in their old places at the table,
Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of
terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert
and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr.
Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading
to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady,
while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little
commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic
expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In
spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fishing, just after the
rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the
lakes, hence there were very few grasshoppers washed in by the heavy
downpour. Had there been, he