“What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?” MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. SIR RALPH did not go to Mrs. Archer’s the next day. Nor for several days after that. How he got through them he could not have told; though probably none of those about him saw in him any change, or traces of disturbance of any kind. He heard Florence, speaking to his mother, mention that Captain Berwick had returned, and he fancied there was a hidden meaning in her tone as she said it. But yet it did not somehow interest him. It seemed already a long time ago since that afternoon on the terrace; and he was so utterly absorbed and engrossed by his own feelings just at this time that outward things did not readily come home to him. He felt as if it were already all over. The same moment which revealed the depth of his love for Marion had burnt into him the conviction that she was lost to him. He knew that his staying away for three days, from the house which had of late become an almost daily resort to him, could not but be observed and commented upon; but he did not care. Just now he was suffering too newly and acutely, to be very sensitive to lesser annoyances, and it seemed a matter of small consequence that his behaviour should appear inconsistent or eccentric. As it happened however, his conduct was not discussed or in any way commented upon by Mrs. Archer and her young friend. Cissy had been ill for two or three days; so ill as to be unable to leave her room, and though all Marion’s time, out of school hours, had been spent in nursing her, they had neither of them felt inclined for much conversation. Ralph heard of the poor little woman’s illness quite accidentally. At luncheon on the third day since his memorable visit, Sybil asked if she might go round by the market in her walk, to buy some fresh flowers. “It’s too late for fresh flowers to-day,” said Miss Vyse. And “What do you want them for?” asked Lady Severn. “For the little boy’s mamma, Grandmamma,” answered Sybil, “she has been ill for two days, and Miss Freer said she was going to get up this afternoon, and she wanted to get some flowers to make the drawing-room pretty, but she hadn’t time to go round by the market.” “And so she left orders with you to do so!” said Lady Severn, sarcastically, “Really, I must say Miss Freer’s ideas of what is fitting and becoming are peculiar, to say the least. To think of my granddaughters being sent all over the town to execute her commissions!” “Oh, Grandmamma,” exclaimed Sybil, on the point of bursting into tears, “it wasn’t that way at all.” “No, indeed,” added Lofty, coming to the rescue; “it was Sybil herself thought of it, and I said I would ask, but she said she would, because when we looked at our money, I had only my gold Napoleon and no little money. And she had two half-francs. So we fixed she should be the one to buy them.”