"Better, of course. She was a trifle cruel, though, was she not?" "You have been proving me very tender-hearted." "So every woman should be." "I doubt whether you know much about us." "I cannot imagine a being--not even an angel-more pure, unselfish, and true than my mother; and she is a woman." "Miss Lottie," here broke in De Forrest, "I've played whist to the utmost limit of my conscience. You will not keep me on the rack any longer." "O, no, Cousin Julian," she replied, sotto voce, "only on the sofa with our dear cousin Bel. See, she sits there alone. Good-by," and she swept past, with a malicious twinkle in her eyes at his blank expression. But Bel saw and understood the scene. With a cynical smile she went to the piano, and commenced a brilliant waltz. Under its spell Addie and Mr. Harcourt came whirling up the hall, and Lottie, who had been under restraint so long, could not resist the temptation of letting De Forrest carry her off also. "It's only with my cousin, you know," she whispered apologetically to Hemstead. He stood in the door-way for a few moments and watched her graceful figure with a strange and growing interest Whether saint or sinner, this being so emphatically of flesh and blood was exceedingly fascinating. The transition from the cloister-like seclusion of his seminary life to this suburb of the gay world was almost bewildering; and Lottie Marsden was one to stir the thin blood and withered heart of the coldest anchorite. The faint perfume which she seemed to exhale like a red rosebush in June was a pleasing exchange for the rather musty and scholastic atmosphere in which he so long had dwelt. As she glanced by as lightly as a bird on the wing, she occasionally beamed upon him with one of her dangerous smiles. She then little thought or cared that his honest and unoccupied heart was as ready to thaw and blossom into love as a violet bank facing the south in spring. He soon had a vague consciousness that he was not doing just the prudent thing, and therefore rejoined his aunt and uncle. Soon after he pleaded the weariness of his journey and retired. As he was about to mount the stairs Lottie whirled by and whispered, "Don't think me past praying for." The slang she used in jest came to him, with his tendencies and convictions, like an unconscious appeal and a divine suggestion. He was utterly unconventional, and while readily unbending into mirthfulness, he regarded life as an exceedingly serious thing. As the eyes of artist and poet catch glimpses of beauty where to others are only hard lines and plain surfaces, so strong religious temperaments are quick to see providences, intimations, and leadings.