intelligence.

With hand instinctively pressed upon her heart, to moderate its too
sanguine pulsations and show the delicate lace around her cuffs, FLORA
shyly entered the parlor, and surprised Mr. PENDRAGON striding up and
down the apartment like one of the more comic of the tragic actors of
the day.

"Miss POTTS!" ejaculated the wild young Southern pedestrian, pausing
suddenly at her approach, with considerable excitement of manner, "scorn
me, spurn me, if you will; but do not let sectional embitterment blind
you to the fact that I am here by the request of Mr. DIBBLE."

"I wasn't scorning and spurning anybody," explained the startled orphan,
coyly accepting the chair he pushed forward. "I'm sure I don't feel any
sectional hatred, nor any other ridiculous thing."

"Forgive me!" pleaded MONTGOMERY. "I reckon I'm a heap too sensitive
about my Southern birth; but only think, Miss POTTS, what I've had to go
through since I've been amongst you Yankees! Fancy what it is to be
suspected of a murder, and have no political influence."

"It must be _so_ absurd!" murmured FLORA.

"I've felt wretched enough about it to become a contributor to the
first-class American comic paper on the next floor below me," he
continued, gloomily. "And here, to-day, without any explanation, your
guardian desires me to come here and wait for him."

"I'm sorry that's such a trial for you, Mr. PENDRAGON," simpered the
Flowerpot. "Perhaps you'd prefer to wait on the front stoop and appear
as though you'd just come, you know?"

"And can you think," cried the young man with increased agitation "that
it would be any trial for me to be in your society, if--? But tell me,
Miss POTTS, has your guardian the right to dispose of your hand in
marriage?"

"I suppose so," answered FLORA, with innocent surprise and a pretty
blush; "he has charge of _all_ my money matters, you know."

"Then it is as I feared," groaned her questioner, smiting his forehead.
"He is coming here to-day to tell you what man of opulence he wants you
to have, and I am to be witness to my own hopelessness!"

"What makes you think anything so ridiculous, you absurd thing?" asked
the orphan, not unkindly.

"He as good as said so," sighed the unhappy Southerner. "He told me,
with his own mouth, that he wanted to get you off his hands as soon as
possible, and thought he saw his way clear to do it."

The girl knew what bitter, intolerable emotions were tearing the heart
of the i