"It is for mamma, dear papa--Emmeline is always before me; but I think the idea of to-night's enjoyment has so bewildered her, that she has forgotten it, so I may just have time to present it before any one comes," and she hastened with her father to the drawing-room, where she found Mrs. Greville and her two children (for Alfred was at home for a few months), in addition to Mr. Morton and their own family group; and the young clergyman could not but admire the natural grace with which Caroline, after warmly welcoming her guests, presented her flowers to her mother. It was a very little thing, but the joys and griefs of home are almost all made up of little things, and Mrs. Hamilton was pleased, not from the attention alone, but that it proved, trifling as it was, that the annoyance and discontent which her command had occasioned in her child had left no unkind feeling behind them; and the manner with which she received it made Caroline very happy, for she had inwardly feared her ill-temper not only deserved, but had excited her mother's displeasure. Emmeline's look of disappointment and self-reproach at her own unusual forgetfulness was so irresistibly comic, that Percy and Edward burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, which the former only checked to ask Caroline where she had been, and what she had done, to produce such an extraordinary change for the better in her appearance in so short a time. "Oh, you have no right to my secrets, Percy," was her perfectly good-humored reply; "I do not think I shall answer you, except by having the charity to refer you to papa, who has produced the change." "By means of this pretty flower then, I imagine," said Mrs. Hamilton; "its power I do not pretend to know, but the taste with which it is placed might vie with that of the most fashionable artiste of the metropolis. Mrs. Greville, do unite with me in congratulating Mr. Hamilton on his new accomplishment."