its untold delight. There are tears in the dreamy, wistful eyes; there is suffering portrayed on the pretty face; the spirit of anguish keeps its steady guard at the threshold of those smiling lips--but--what have I done? Oh! forgive me, youth now tangled in those golden meshes. I unsay the words, mine must not be the tyrant hand to tear away the screen a merciful Father has placed between you and what is to come. No! no! smile and dream and hope and wait on. One evening, as Henry Rayne lay reclining among his cushions before the glowing coals, Honor and Jean d'Alberg burst in upon him in his solitude, full of fresh, blooming spirits, laughing and feeling numb with cold. "Here? you selfish old pet," Honor said, running towards him, "toasting your limbs by the fire, so cosily, when your little girl is freezing on the streets, starved and numb!" The old man leaned back his white head on the velvet upholstering, and looked lovingly into the bright, happy, blushing face of the girl standing behind him, then taking both her little "frozen" hands in his dry, warm ones, he squeezed them tenderly, saying-- "To be sure, you are numb, you lovely little witch. Have you been firing snow-balls, or shovelling snow or what?" "Most likely," Honor answered with mock dignity, "a young lady aspiring to the wisdom of her twenties is sure to spend her time firing snow-balls against the fence." "Oh, no of-_fence_ to you, frozen queen," Henry Rayne interrupted, looking shyly up to see how his pun was appreciated. "Not a bad attempt for a dull mind at all," the girl said laughingly, "don't forget it, and I'll give you a chance to use it again, when there's more appreciation in the room than there is just now." "Come, come, you little humbug, take off that gigantic sacque, and sit down here; _upun_ my word I won't make any more of those nasty _jeu de mots_." "Oh, I see you are a hopeless case," Honor said, sighing heavily, at the same time undoing lazily the great seal fastenings of her seal coat, as he bade her. She then drew out the long pins from her velvet "poke" and removed that becoming article from her head. "Give them to Jean," Mr. Rayne said, motioning backward, "she will be going up directly." "It is well she has transferred herself to that place already," Honor replied, "or she would not be too flattered to think that her presence had made such a little impression all the while." As she delivered this little speech, she touched her dainty fingers to the bell beside her, and when Nanette appeared in the doorway, she gave her her costly bundle of street wear to carry away upstairs, and as the faithful attendant piled them respectfully on her arm, Honor prepared to seat herself beside her guardian, for a "little chat." "Well, I hope you're ready at last, dear knows it does take a time for you females to get out of your finery," Henry Rayne said in assumed impatience.