It was about six years after these events, that Cecil Dormer again was seated on the sofa in Mrs. Clifford's drawing-room, but Rosamond no longer sat upon his knee. The rosy-cheeked child, with short curling hair, short frock, and ruffled pantalettes, had disappeared, and, in her stead, a maiden with longer and more closely fitting robes, smoother and darker hair, and cheeks of paler and more mutable roses. Cecil was unchanged in face, but there was that in his air and manner which spoke a higher degree of elegance and fashion, and a deeper acquaintance with the world. He had passed several years at Paris. Rosamond had been in the mean time at a distant boarding-school, where Eugenia still remained. "What are you going to do with Eugenia," asked Mrs. Clifford, "when she returns? Will you not find a young female protegée rather an embarrassing appendage to a bachelor's establishment?" "I have just been thinking of the same thing," replied Cecil. "I believe I must still encroach on your kindness as I was wont to do in former days, and request you to receive her under your protection, till some permanent arrangement can be made for her home." "That permanent arrangement must be your own marriage, I should presume," said Mrs. Clifford; "and indeed, Cecil, I wonder that with your fortune and rare endowments, you do not think seriously of assuming the responsibility of a household." "What! the sensible Benedict a married man?" cried Cecil, with a theatrical start. "I shall lose all my consequence in society--I shall dwindle down into complete insignificance. No--I am not quite old enough to be married yet. I must act, too, as protector and elder brother to Rosamond, on her entrance into the world, an office which I promised to perform, when I dandled her a child in my arms." "I am sure Rosamond would not wish to interfere with your personal arrangements," replied Mrs. Clifford, in a tone of pique--she was vexed and astonished at Cecil's coldness and indifference. She could not imagine the stoicism which could resist the influence of Rosamond's blooming beauty. She had looked forward to their meeting, after an absence of years, as the moment which should realize her long-cherished hopes, and nothing could be more provoking than the nonchalance of Cecil, unless it was the warm interest he manifested in everything respecting Eugenia. "No, indeed," said Rosamond, laughing, "I willingly relinquish every claim on your protection, for Eugenia's sake. Perhaps some one else will take pity on my forlorn condition, and volunteer as my champion." Rosamond laughed, but her voice was unsteady, and a bright blush suffused her cheek.