"Oh! these are _yours_," she answered, "sent by a friend who was quite distressed at your absence from the dinner-table. Cannot you guess the donor?" "It will not require much acuteness," replied I, taking the flowers, and though I could not help admiring their beauty, and feeling grateful for the attention, a shade of regret clouded their welcome; "I have so few friends it is easy to conjecture who thus administers to my gratification." "Well, who is it? You do not hazard the utterance of the name." "No one but Richard Clyde would think of giving me a token like this. They are very, _very_ sweet, and yet I wish he had not sent them." "Ungrateful Gabriella! No one but Richard! A host of common beings melted into one, could not make the equal of the friend who made me the bearer of this charming offering. Is the gift of Ernest greeted with such indifference?" "Ernest!" I repeated, and the blood bounded in my veins like a stream leaping over a mountain rock. "Is he indeed so kind?" I bent my head over the beautiful messengers, to hide the joy too deep for words, the gratitude too intense for the gift. As I thus looked down into the heart of the flowers, I caught a glimpse of something white folded among the green leaves. Edith's back was turned as she smoothed the folds of an India muslin dress that lay upon the bed. I drew out the paper with a tremulous hand, and read these few pencilled words:-- "Sweet flower girl of the north! be not cast down. The most noxious wind changes not the purity of marble; neither can an idle breath shake the confidence born of unsullied innocence." These words pencilled by his own hand, were addressed to _me_. They were embalmed in fragrance and imbedded in bloom, and henceforth they were engraven on tablets on which the hand of man had never before traced a character, which the whole world might not peruse. Oh, what magic there was in those little words! Slander had lost its sting, and malice its venom, at least for the present hour. I put the talisman in my bosom and the flowers in water,--for _they_ might fade.