"I couldn't write!" stammered out Tony; "I could not!"

"Well, I will," said she, with a tone of kind feeling. "Your mother
shall tell me where to address you."

"You will see mother, then?" asked he, eagerly.

"Of course, Tony. If Mrs. Butler will permit me, I will be a frequent
visitor."

"Oh, if I thought so!"

"Do think so,--be assured of it; and remember, Tony, whenever you have
courage to think of me as your own old friend of long ago, write and
tell me so." These words were not said without a certain difficulty.
"There, don't let us appear foolish to your smart friend, yonder.
Goodbye."

"Good-bye, Alice," said he, and now the tears rushed fast, and rolled
down his cheeks; but he drew his hand roughly across his face, and,
springing upon the car, said, "Drive on, and as hard as you can; I am
too late here."

Skeffy shouted his adieux, and waved a most picturesque farewell; but
Tony neither heard nor saw either. Both hands were pressed on his face,
and he sobbed as if his very heart was breaking.

"Well, if that's not a melodramatic exit, I'm a Dutchman," exclaimed
Skeffy, turning to address Alice; but she too was gone, and he was left
standing there alone.

"Don't be angry with me, Bella! don't scold, and I 'll tell you of
an indiscretion I have just committed," said Alice, as she sat on her
sister's bed.

"I think I can guess it," said Bella, looking up in her face.

"No, you cannot,--you are not within a thousand miles of it. I know
perfectly what you mean, Bella; you suspect that I have opened a
flirtation with the distinguished Londoner, the wonderful Skeffington
Darner."

Bella shook her head dissentingly.

"Not but one might," continued Alice, laughing, "in a dull season, with
an empty house and nothing to do; just as I 've seen you trying to play
that twankling old harpsichord in the Flemish drawing-room, for want of
better; but you are wrong, for all that."

"It was not of him I was thinking, Alice,--on my word, it was not. I had
another, and, I suppose, a very different person in my head."

"Tony!"

"Just so."

"Well, what of him; and what the indiscretion with which you would
charge me?"

"With which you charge yourself, Alice dearest! I see it all in that
pink spot on your cheek, in that trembling of your lips, and in that
quick impatience of your manner."

"Dear me! what can it be which has occasioned such agitation, and called
up such terrible witnesses against me?"

"