fulness itself," said Mr. Caruthers, turning towards the old lady with the deference and gentleness he always showed her, a consideration which formed his redeeming point in Phillis's eyes.

"Of course she is, Mr. Caruthers, the result of my bringing up! Yes, yes, grandma, we will high tea them to the fullest extent of mine and Ninny's abilities! But you didn't answer my question, Georgia or Mr. Caruthers-who was it I asked? Is Mrs. Mayford young and pretty?"

"Rather pretty and rather young," said Georgia, smiling : she could never long resist Phillis's nonsense.

"I don't believe rather young is grammatical; now is it, Mr. Caruthers?" cried Phillis.

"It isn't founded on fact, either!" added Peyton.

"Why, Maurice, what a horrible speech!" expostulated Georgia.

"She's thirty-five, and we know it, though she always talks as if she was our contemporary," said Maurice. "She is rather pretty; she is deceitful, catty, and abuses you and me like pickpockets behind our backs! Caruthers knows it as well as we, and he knows there's no love lost between us, so why make a mystery of your sentiments?"

66

Certainly, my dear fellow, you have spoken clearly enough," rejoined Mr. Caruthers, with a constrained smile. He had no objection to hearing his relative's widow abused, but he did not like its being done before Miss French.

"You mustn't try to prejudice us against the lady in advance, Mr. Peyton," said grandma, gently, out of care for Mr. Caruthers's feelings.

"Oh, discovering that she has discernment enough to appreciate Mr. Peyton at his just value, could not have that ef fect," observed Phillis, turning quickly against her former ally. "Because you know my worth too well," said he.

"But I don't believe any human being could help loving Georgia," said Mrs. Davis, naïvely.

"Thanks, grandma !" said Georgia.

"Unless that human being were a widow rather pretty and rather young!" cried Phillis.

"I think Miss Grosvenor will admit that Maurice exaggerated somewhat," Mr. Caruthers remarked, looking at her so contritely that Georgia felt she could not be sufficiently un

generous to punish him any further for what was no fault of his, especially as she knew well that Mrs. Mayford was as distasteful to him as to herself.

"Phillis knows he always does, Mr. Caruthers: she will receive his statement with due reservation," said Georgia, encouraging her unhappy devotee by a cordial smile.

"Indeed, G. G., I have always found Mr. Peyton a model of truth," cried Phillis, again going over to her ally.

"And if Georgia and Caruthers don't stop abusing me, I'll tell something else," said Maurice, with a mischievous glance at the gentleman, under which he visibly suffered.

But Georgia was too thoroughly a woman to let anybody tease an admirer of hers beyond certain limits, and now she came to Mr. Caruthers's rescue.

"Grandma, you have had no turn in the garden to-day," she said. 66 Suppose we go there and show Mr. Caruthers our dahlias? We will leave this tiresome pair to bore each

other."

The old lady complied; Mr. Caruthers offered her his arm with alacrity, and led her down the steps.

"G. G. is beginning to pit herself against the widow," said Maurice, in a whisper, as his sister passed him in their wake. "Oh! now I understand!" answered Phillis, in the same tone.

"You are the most ridiculous couple of spoiled children that I ever saw," said Georgia, aloud, laughing so pleasantly that Mr. Caruthers glanced back with an increased air of relief. It lightened his spirits wonderfully to find that she did not mean to bear heavily upon him for the misfortune of Mrs. Mayford's arrival.

When the three were out of hearing, Phillis said,—

"I see! I see! That widow has made a dead set at poor Mr. Caruthers, and hates Georgia because she has stolen him." Precisely!" said Maurice. "It's lucky she doesn't know the real state of matters between them, else she'd poison Georgia as sure as fate. You ought to have seen his fright when he told me of her invasion! He pretended to have a message for Denis, but he only came to our house first, to get me to help break the news to G. G. of the intended visit! He let out that the widow wanted to make him stop and drive over, but he escaped by promising to see them home."

"And is she really a great friend of your aunt's?"

"She was a ward of Mr. Conyngham's, and used to live in their house the aunt is attached to her from habit, and the widow knows how to flatter her very adroitly. Then she's sorry for her: old Mayford's relations managed to break the will, and she only got a very moderate share of the spoils, which was hard lines, as she married him for his money." Ugh! served her right!" said Phillis.

"She's as plausible and deceitful as Old Nick," he continued. "She will rush into an intimacy with you if she can you'll hear a nice lot about me!"

"I shall be too busy gaining her confidence in regard to her plans on poor Mr. Caruthers to listen," said Phillis. "Now I must go and warn Ninny to prepare a feast. We will mollify her with hot biscuits, and soothe her with sweets, and she shall sit next her proposed victim at table. I foresee that I shall dote on the widow."

"Now, please, don't stop away an hour," pleaded Maurice, as she turned to go. "I want to tell you something."

"I will join you in the garden."

"No, no: I don't wish to hear Caruthers prose."

"But I do," said Phillis. "He is very nice, though he doesn't like me."

"Nonsense! But never mind him!"

"No more than I do you," she replied, and disappeared in-doors.

In the mean time the other three had entered the garden. Mr. Caruthers complimented the old lady's dahlias to her satisfaction, and showed a becoming interest in her cheerful talk.

"I will sit down now," she said, after a while, as they reached a rustic bench. "Georgia, my dear, perhaps Mr. Caruthers will help you pick some of our beauties to give your aunt. Choose a quantity of those splendid crimson ones,-Eastern Queens, Phillis calls them, though I fancy the name is her own invention."

"It is certainly very appropriate," said Mr. Caruthers.

He gratefully seized the opportunity for a little private conversation with Miss Grosvenor, and grandma sat looking after them as they walked away, thinking how pleasant it was to have the society of all those charming young people, for to

grandma even Mr. Caruthers had hardly lost claims to youth. The patience with which she had borne the trials of former years had borne blessed fruit; no cloud of doubt troubled her; whatever happened would be for the best, whether as regarded her darling Phillis or others. She could sit and smile at her own pretty fancies, listen to the songs of the late birds, enjoy the sunshine, her soul filled with serene quiet, and perhaps, though we who are restless with the possession of strength can hardly realize it, that boon granted to age is the highest blessing which reaches us in the whole round of human existence.

"What a picture the dear old lady makes!" Georgia said, glancing back at her as they paused by the dahlia-beds.

"Yes," Mr. Caruthers answered, a little absently, too full of the wish to acquire a certainty that he had not incurred Miss Grosvenor's displeasure, to bestow much thought on any other subject.

"I think we will have some of these Golden Marvels," Georgia observed, and he began to pick the blossoms she pointed out.

"It

"I am so sorry for what has happened!" he said. would have been bad taste on my part to say much before strangers; still, I beg you to believe, Miss Grosvenor, that I would have saved you the annoyance of Mrs. Mayford's visit if I could; but I never dreamed of her coming here."

"You could have done nothing if you had known, Mr. Caruthers," Georgia replied. "And it certainly would be very unjust to blame you. Indeed, she will tease you more by the exactions of her friendship than she can me by her active dislike."

He sighed, remembering what he should have to endure, but only said,

"She can hardly go so far as active dislike."

"Don't risk your character for sincerity by pretending to doubt it," returned Georgia, laughing. "She seldom takes any pains to hide her feelings towards me."

He could not deny this, and he knew, too, that in her girlish days Georgia had often suffered at the unscrupulous woman's hands by being misrepresented to her aunt, and annoyed in every possible manner, until old enough to teach her enemy that she had grown too strong for this line of

conduct to continue. Personally, too, he had strong reasons for detesting his relative's widow. Though too thorough a gentleman to breathe it to any human being, and hating to admit it even to his own thoughts, because it seemed vain and petty, the relict's pursuit had been so open, in spite of her usual wariness, that it was useless to try to shut his eyes to the fact of her having stern matrimonial intentions in regard to him, which failure had by no means caused her to relinquish.

"The truth is, she is envious of you," he said.

"Her reasons are as indifferent to me as her dislike itself,"

said Georgia. "We get on very well, now that she has learned it is not safe to pass certain limits. I suppose that speaks ill for my amiability; but then she is perfectly correct when she says I am not amiable.”

"Oh, Miss Grosvenor !"

But Georgia did not want compliments which might pave the way to more serious subjects, for upon these there could be only one further discussion between them, at such time as she should find courage to tell him the truth. There was no opportunity now, Georgia reflected with a sensation of relief, even while her conscience pricked her for not having made it before.

"Look at those gorgeous purple flowers," she said. "Phillis calls them the Ladies-in-Waiting: the white are Maids of Honor. There is no end to her pretty fancies."

"Miss French is undoubtedly very clever," he replied. "The cleverest girl I ever knew, and the best!" cried Georgia, so vehemently that Mr. Caruthers deemed it wise not to hint at a single exception.

"She is fortunate in her friend," he said: "you do not praise by halves."

"I hope you know that when I am one I am sincere," she answered.

"Indeed I do," he said, so earnestly that she remembered her words had offered a dangerous opening, and hastened to add,

"I think we must not commit any further depredation; and grandma enjoys your visits so much, it is not fair to deprive her any longer of your society."

Mr. Caruthers would gladly have lingered, and carried the