"I did not notice; I do not think so." "Oh! he told me the first time I asked him about her." Millicent laughed again, as we went on, at the idea of her living alone. I still persisted it was a fact. CHAPTER XVI. The next being _our_ night, after dinner the next day I went to my garden. It was growing latest autumn, but still we had had no frosts. My monthly roses were in full bloom, my fuchsias flower-laden. Then I had a geranium or two, labelled with my name, in the little greenhouse. I gathered as many as I could hold in both my hands, and carried them into the parlor. "You have some flowers there," said Clo, with condescension. "It is a pity to gather them when there are so few out," remarked Lydia, without lifting her eyes from her work. I took no notice of them. Millicent beckoned me out of the parlor. "I will give you some ribbon, Charles, if you will come to my room." So she did, and she arranged my flowers so as to infuse into their autumnal aspect the glow of summer, so skilfully she grouped the crimson of the geraniums against the pale roses and purple stocks. I set forth, holding them in my hand. For the first time, I met Davy before I went in. He shook hands, and asked me to come to tea with him on the morrow. Clara was there alone. She greeted me gravely, and yet I thought she would have smiled, had there not been something to make her grave. "Miss Benette!" I whispered, but she would not answer. Davy had just emerged below. We were making rapid progress. I always made way, not only because my ear was true and my voice pure, but because I was sustained by the purest voice and the truest ear in the class. But now the other voices grew able to support themselves, and nothing can be imagined more perfect in its way than the communion of the parts as they exactly balanced each other,--the separate voices toned down and blended into a full effect that extinguished any sensible difference between one and another. I am very matter of fact, I know; but that is better than to be commonplace,--and not the same thing, though they are often confounded. If the real be the ideal, then is the matter of fact the true. This ghost of an aphorism stalked forth from my brain, whose chambers are unfraught with book-lore as with worldly knowledge; and to lay its phantomship, I am compelled to submit it to paper. I could not make Clara attend to me until all was over. Then she said to me of her own accord,-- "Little Laura is ill; she caught cold after she danced the other evening, and has been in bed since." "Will you have these flowers, then? I am afraid they are half faded, though my hand is very cold." "I will take them to Laura,--she has no flowers." "I am very sorry; I hope it was not my fault,--I mean, I hope it did not tire her to dance before me first."