While Lawrence was speaking, Miss Cordelia stooped and picked something up from the floor. He noticed that it was the leafless stem of the flower which Brinsley had been twisting in his fingers. She did not throw it away, but her hand closed over it, and Lawrence did not see it again. CHAPTER V. Louis Lawrence had not been at Bar Harbour a week before he became fully aware--if indeed there had previously been any doubt on the subject in his mind--that he was very much in love with Fanny Trehearne. It became clear to him that, although he had believed himself to be in love once or twice before then, he had been mistaken, and that he had never known until the present time exactly what love meant. He was not even sure that he was pleased with the passion, or, at least, with the form in which it attacked him. Sensitive as he was, it 'took him hard,' as the saying is, and he felt that it had the better of him at every turn, and disposed of him in spite of himself at every hour of the day. When he was alone he wondered why he had been asked to the house, and whether Mr. and Mrs. Trehearne, who were abroad, knew anything about it. He was a modest man, and was inclined to underestimate himself, so that it could never have occurred to him that Fanny Trehearne might have been strongly attracted by him during their acquaintance in town, and might have insisted that he should be asked to come and pass a fortnight. Moreover, Fanny lost no opportunity of impressing upon him that he was a great favourite with the three Miss Miners, and she managed to convey the impression that he had been asked chiefly to please them, though she never said so. Meanwhile, however, it was evident that the three sisters were absorbed in Mr. Brinsley, and that when the latter was present they took very little notice of Lawrence. He laughed at the thought that the three old maids should all be equally in love with the showy Canadian, and he told himself that the thing was ridiculous; that they were merely enthusiastic women,--'gushing' women, he called them in his thoughts,--who were flattered by the diplomatic and unfailing civilities of a man who was evidently in pursuit of Fanny Trehearne.