In the meantime the object of all this severity was kicking his heels in the spacious drawing-room appropriated to morning visitors, whither he had been conducted by an elaborately polite footman, who after informing him that “the General was _hout_, and Miss Kettering at _’ome_,” made a precipitate retreat, leaving him to his own thoughts and the contemplation of his well-dressed figure in some half-dozen mirrors. Frank soon tired of these resources, and found himself driven to the table for amusement, where he found the usual litter of handsomely-bound books, costly work-boxes, grotesque paper-cutters, and miniatures painted in all the glowing colours of the rainbow. He was nervous (for him)--very nervous, and though he took one up after another, and examined them most minutely, he would have been sorely puzzled to explain what he was looking at. Nor did a contemplation of Blanche’s portrait in ivory serve to restore the visitor’s composure, albeit representing that young lady smiling with all her might under a heavy crimson curtain. He shut up the case with a savage _snap_, and replaced it with a bitter sneer. But if the representation of Miss Kettering’s outward semblance met with so little favour, neither did her album, which we may presume was the index of her mind, seem to afford greater satisfaction to this discontented young man. It opened unfortunately at some lines by Lord Mount Helicon, “addressed to B---- on being asked whether the disfigurement of the object was not a certain cure for any man’s love,” and was entitled-- “THE FADED FLOWER. “I spied a sweet Moss-rose my garden adorning, With a blush at her core like the pink of a shell, And I wrung from her petals the dewdrop of morning, And gathered her gently and tended her well. For the bee and the butterfly round her were humming, To whisper their flattering love-tale, and fly; And too surely I knew that the season was coming, When the flower must fade and the insect must die. So deep in the shade of my chamber I brought her, And sheltered her safe from the wind and the sun, And cared for her kindly and dipped her in water, And vowed to preserve her when summer was done. Though dark was my dwelling, this darling of Flora, Like a spirit of beauty, enlivened the gloom; Yet more than I loved her I seemed to adore her, Less fond of her fragrance than proud of her bloom. But long ere the brightness of summer was shaded, My Moss-rose was drooping and withering away; Her perfume had perished, her freshness had faded-- The very condition of life is decay. And now more than ever I cherish and prize her, For love shall not falter though beauty depart; And far dearer to me, because others despise her, That Moss-rose, all withered, lies next to my heart.”