Letitia was too ladylike to commit herself to much enthusiasm, but she smiled. If there was a warm place in that poor little frigid heart, papa certainly had it, as in every heart belonging to him. "You look quite pretty" said she, condescendingly. "Some day when you go to parties you'll dress me and make me look pretty too, and take me with you? You won't keep me shut up in the nursery till I am quite old, as Phillis says you will?" "Did Phillis say that?" Christian answered, with a sore sinking of the heart at the utter impossibility that under such influences these children should ever learn to love her. "Phillis is a fool," cried Arthur, angrily. "When I get well again, if ever she says one word to me of the things she used to say about mother, won't I pitch into her, that's all!" Christian smiled--a rather sad smile, but she thought it best to take no notice, and soon Phillis came and fetched the two away. After they were gone the young step-mother stood by her bedroom fire, thinking anxiously of these her children, turning over in her mind plan after plan as to how she should make them love her. But it seemed a very hopeless task still. She looked into the blazing coals, and then began playing with a little chimney-piece ornament showing the day of the month--21st of March. Could it be possible that she had been married three months? Three months since that momentous day when her solitary, self-contained life was swept out of the narrow boundaries of self forever--made full and busy, ay, and bright too? For it was not a sad face, far from it, which met her in the mirror above; it was a face radiant with youth and health, and the soft peacefulness which alone gives a kind of beauty. Well, so best! She had not expected this, but she did not wish it otherwise. The clock struck eight. She was, after all, ready too soon so she wrapped her white opera cloak around her, and went down to the drawing-room. To pass the time, she thought she would sing a little, as indeed she now made a point of doing daily, and would have done, whether she cared for it or not, if only out of gratitude to the love which had delighted itself in giving her pleasure. But she did care for it. Nothing, nobody, could quench the artist nature which, the instant the heavy weight of sorrow was taken away, sprang up like a living fountain in this girl's soul. She sang, quite alone in the room, but with such a keen delight, such a perfect absorption of enjoyment, that she never noticed her husband's entrance till he had stood for some minutes behind her chair. When he touched her she started, then smiled. "Oh, it is only you!" "Only me. Did I trouble you?" "Oh no; was I not troubling you?" "How, my dear?" Christian could not tell. Anyhow she found it impossible to explain, except that she had fancied he did not care for music.