l," sighed she, in a weak voice; "it's
passing off."

"It was this great fire, I suppose," said Tony, as he knelt down beside
her, and bathed her temples with some cold water that stood near.
"Coming out of the cold air, a fire will do that."

"Yes," said she, trying to smile, "it was that."

"I thought so," said he, rather proud of his acuteness. "Let me settle
you comfortably here;" and he lifted her up in his strong arms, and
placed her in the chair where he had been sitting. "Dear me, Dolly, how
light you are!"

She shook her head, but gave a smile, at the same time, of mingled
melancholy and sweetness.

"I 'd never have believed you could be so light; but you 'll see what
home and native air will do," added he, quickly, and ashamed of his own
want of tact. "My little mother, too, is such a nurse, I 'll be sworn
that before a month's over you 'll be skipping over the rocks, or
helping me to launch the coble, like long ago,--won't you, Dolly?"

"Go on with what you were telling me," said she, faintly.

"Where was I? I forget where I stopped. Oh, yes; I remember it now. I
went home as quick as I could, and I wrote Mark Lyle a letter. I know
you 'll laugh at the notion of a letter by my hand; but I think I said
what I wanted to say. I did n't want to disclaim all that I owed his
family; indeed I never felt so deeply the kindness they had shown me as
at the moment I was relinquishing it forever; but I told him that if
he presumed, on the score of that feeling, to treat me like some humble
hanger-on of his house, I'd beg to remind him that by birth at least I
was fully his equal. That was the substance of it, but I won't say that
it was conveyed in the purest and best style."

"What did he reply?"

"Nothing,--not one line. I ought to say that I started for England
almost immediately after; but he took no notice of me when I came back,
and we never met since."

"And his sisters,--do you suspect that they know of this letter of
yours?"

"I cannot tell, but I suppose not. It's not likely Mark would speak of
it."

"How, then, do they regard your abstaining from calling there?"

"As a caprice, I suppose. They always thought me a wayward, uncertain
sort of fellow. It's a habit your well-off people have, to look on their
poorer friends as queer and odd and eccentric,--eh, Dolly?"

"There's some truth in the remark, Tony," said she, smiling; "but I
scarcely expected to hear you come out as a moralist."

"That