dreadfully out of place in these days of riband-gardening and floral mathematics. "Why, who on earth expected to see you?" said Mr. 'Kelvin, as he shook hands heartily with Miss Deane. "Not you, I daresay, Matthew," answered Miss Deane, with a blush and a little sigh, as she looked straight into his handsome face. "Why not I as much as anyone?" queried her cousin with a smile, as he placed a chair for her at no great distance from his own. "You always were fond of change, Olive." She smiled again, a little bitterly. "Why don't you add--like all my sex?" "Because I was speaking to one of your sex. Had I been talking to a man, I should probably have used those very words. Olive, I'm really glad to see you, whether you come holiday-making, or whether you come because you have left Lady----Lady----?" "Lady Culloden. Yes, I have left her. I grew tired of my situation. Slights innumerable; one petty insult after another: my position not properly recognised: till at last I felt that I must speak my mind or die. I did speak my mind, and in a way that her ladyship is not likely to forget. We parted. I felt a longing to see Pembridge and my old friends. I wanted to see my aunt--and you." "You know that you are always sure of a welcome here." "But my aunt--how is she?" asked Miss Deane. "No better, I am sorry to say; neither do I see much prospect of her ever being so. She is confined very much to her own room." "Poor dear aunt! I am very very sorry to hear that she is no better. Does she keep up her good spirits?" "Yes," replied Mr. Kelvin; "her spirits are, as they have always been, something wonderful." "I believe, Matthew, that I love her better than I ever loved my own mother." "No one can know my mother without liking her," he returned. "And then what a gentlewoman she is!" said Olive. "There is as much difference between her and Lady Culloden as there is between a flower cut out of a turnip and a real camellia."