ROSCORIA'S BETROTHED. Rosetta Villiers was looking very uncomfortable. She had taken a seat opposite to her uncle, the admiral, and was cross-questioning him with a certain sternness, before which the old sinner was quailing considerably. "Mr. Roscoria made you this offer, you say? It is most extraordinary: I scarcely have seen him." "Why, Rosetta, he gave me to understand--at least, he hinted at something like an _affaire de coeur_ between you." "Affaire de fiddlestick!" cried Miss Villiers, rising in real indignation; "the man _must_ have been exceeding! Why, upon my word, the conceit of these young men! I suppose, passing me in the lanes once or twice, he was slightly taken with my looks, and supposes me to have been equally entranced by his. I should really like to see him, uncle, to give him a piece of my mind." "Well, that is the most sensible thing you have said, Rosetta," agreed the admiral, "for you must anyway see this fellow, and make it up with him somehow, to save my credit as a man of my word. I admit it's a deuced awkward business, but since I consented to it--in cold blood mind, Rosetta, I repeat that I had _not_ had too much--I am bound to stick by the contract, and I suppose you, being included in it, are at least called upon to bear me out."' "I never knew such a fearful scrape!" cried Rosetta, with a rush of despairing tears to her eyes. And then, being very brave of nature, she shook herself together and pondered. She was a real child still, only sixteen, and had never been much in the company of older ladies. She was, therefore, quite unprepared to enter upon any matrimonial plans of her own, and--clever as she was--dwelt in surprising ignorance of the world. No course then could her inexperience suggest, except that of saving her uncle's reputation by adhering to the contract. And as she thought and accustomed herself to the strange idea, her young face lighted up with humorous smiles, and she threw up her head with a delightful sense of enterprise. "Sir," she began, turning solemnly upon the shamefaced admiral, "I feel that you have treated me with scant consideration, and plunged me early into the difficulties of a matronly career. Nevertheless, such is my care for the family reputation that--I'll marry Louis Roscoria!" she concluded, with a sudden gust of laughter. "Yes; he is learned, is he not? And I remember him as very good-looking," she added, with a blush; "large, soft eyes, if I am not mistaken. I _suppose_ one can fall in love, given a man so handsome. _Allons--essayons!_ But if I don't give it him for this abominable deception, then I don't feel the blood of my Spanish ancestors on the mother's side coursing vigorously through my veins! Sir, I consent."