She had no alternative but to consent, and bowing her head, she answered back, "Yes, Richard; that is all I can expect, all I wish. I had no other intention in sending you bouquets." He knew that she did not tell him truly, but he pitied her mortification, and tried to divert her mind by talking upon indifferent subjects, but Grace was too much chagrined and disappointed to pay much heed to what he said, and after a time arose to go. "Come again soon," he said, accompanying her to the door, "and send up that novelty Edith, will you?" "Edith," muttered Grace, as she swept haughtily down the box-lined walk, and stepped into her carriage. "I'll send her back to the Asylum, as I live. Why didn't she tell me just how it was, and so prevent me from making myself ridiculous?" Grace was far too much disturbed to go home at once. She should do or say something unlady-like if she did, and she bade Tom drive her round the village, thus unconsciously giving the offending Edith a longer time in which to entertain and amuse the guest at Brier Hill, for Arthur St. Claire had come. Edith was the first to spy him sauntering slowly up the walk, and she watched him curiously as he came, mimicing his gait, and wondering if he didn't feel big. "Nobody's afraid of you," she soliloquised, "if you do belong to the firstest family in Virginia." Then, hearing Rachel, who answered his ring, bid him walk into the parlor and amuse himself till Mrs. Atherton came, she thought, "Wouldn't it be jolly to go down and entertain him myself. Let me see, what does Mrs. Atherton say to the Shannondale gentlemen when they call? Oh, I know, she asks them if they've read the last new novel; how they liked it, and so on. I can do all that, and maybe he'll think I'm a famous scholar. I mean to wear the shawl she looks so pretty in," and going to her mistress' drawer, the child took out and threw around her shoulders a crimson scarf, which Grace often wore, and then descended to the parlor, where Arthur St. Claire stood, leaning against the marble mantel, and listlessly examining various ornaments upon it. At the first sight of him Edith felt her courage forsaking her, there seemed so wide a gulf between herself and the haughty- looking stranger, and she was about to leave the room when he called after her, bidding her stay, and asking who she was. "I'm Edith Hastings," she answered, dropping into a chair, and awkwardly kicking her heels against the rounds in her embarrassment at having those large, quizzical brown eyes fixed so inquiringly upon her.