Henry Manning was awaking from a dream. It was not a very pleasant awakening, but as his vanity rather than his heart was touched, he was able to conceal his chagrin, and appear as interesting and agreeable as usual. He now expected with some impatience the _denouement_ of the comedy. An hour passed away, and Mrs. Duffield's eye began to consult the marble clock on her mantel-piece. The chime for another half-hour rang out; and she left the room and returned in a few minutes, leaning on the arm of George Manning. "Who is that?--What noble-looking man is that?" were questions Henry Manning heard from many--from a very few only the exclamation, "How oddly he is dressed!" Before the evening was over Henry began to feel that he was eclipsed on his own theatre--that George, if not _in the fashion_, was yet more _the fashion_ than he. Following the proud, happy glance of his brother's eye, a quarter of an hour later, Henry saw Miss Harcourt entering the room in an opposite direction from that in which she had lately come. If this was a _ruse_ on her part to veil the connection between their movements, it was a fruitless caution. None who had seen her before could fail now to observe the softened character of her beauty, and those who saw "A thousand blushing apparitions start Into her face"-- whenever his eyes rested on her, could scarcely doubt his influence over her. The next morning George Manning brought Miss Harcourt to visit his mother; and Mrs. Manning rose greatly in her son Henry's estimation, when he saw the affectionate deference evinced towards her by the proud beauty. "How strange my manner must have seemed to you sometimes!" said Miss Harcourt to Henry one day. "I was engaged to George long before I met you in Europe; and though I never had courage to mention him to you, I wondered a little that you never spoke of him. I never doubted for a moment that you were acquainted with our engagement." "I do not even yet understand where and how you and George met." "We met at home--my father was Governor of the Territory--State now--in which your uncle lives: our homes were very near each other's, and so we met almost daily while I was still a child. We have had all sorts of adventures together; for George was a great favorite with my father, and I was permitted to go with him anywhere. He has saved my life twice--once at the imminent peril of his own, when with the wilfulness of a spoiled child I would ride a horse which he told me I could not manage. Oh! you know not half his nobleness," and tears moistened the bright eyes of the happy girl. Henry Manning was touched through all his conventionalism, yet the moment after he said, "George is a fine fellow, certainly; but I wish you could persuade him to dress a little more like other people."