The shortened days and inclement weather of winter curtailed Mark's rambles, and his evenings were spent with his piano and books at home, or with his briar-wood pipe and chess at Dr. Wattletop's. One evening as he sat down to tea in the little basement dining-room, his sister-in-law, with a significant smile, laid an elegant envelope by the side of his plate. "There, Mark," said she, "there is something that will please you, I've no doubt." He opened the envelope with a little trepidation, and found it to contain, as he had half-suspected, an engraved request from Miss Heath, for the pleasure of his company at "The Cliff," on a certain evening. "When it came this afternoon," said Mrs. Gildersleeve, "I was in such a flutter. Bridget was out to see her sick sister, and I was washing the dinner things when the bell rang. I just took time to dry my hands and ran to the door, for I expected as much as could be that it was one of the men from the Works that your brother said he would send to fix the grate, and I was so confused when I saw it was a stranger--the young man with a cockade on his hat that follows Miss Heath when she goes out horseback riding--I don't know whether you have ever noticed him or not?" Mark said he thought he had; and his brother remarked that it was another of those English liveried flunkeys that that old aristocrat, Rufe Heath, had imported to demoralize our democratic institutions. "George," said Mrs. Gildersleeve, reproachfully, "you shouldn't talk in that way, my dear. Mr. Heath does a great deal of good--a great deal; and as for the young man, I'm sure he was very respectful and well-behaved, indeed. I don't know, though, what he must have thought, for I must have looked very untidy, and I was so confused and flushed that I never once thought of asking him whether he would walk in and sit down, which wasn't a bit polite or hospitable on my part. I hope, Mark, you will accept this invitation, for you should certainly go out in society more than you do. I do wish you had been with us the other evening at Mrs. Sniffen's tea-party. I don't know when I have had such a delightful time. Bishop White was there, and the new minister who has been stationed lately at the Furnaces--the Rev. Mr. Rousemup. His wife has a beautiful voice, and she sang 'Plunged in a Gulf of Dark Despair' so sweetly, that I'm sure there couldn't have been a dry eye present. I know you would have enjoyed it. But lately you have taken to staying in your room too much; you seem to have given up the Debating Society altogether and never go anywhere, except it is to Dr. Wattletop's, and I must confess that I don't half like it. The doctor, to be sure, is one of the kindest and best souls in the world, but he has such very queer notions. They even go so far as to say that he is a freethinker. Now I would be very sorry to believe that of any one; but he says such very strange things, if the reports are true, and Brother Close told me that Mrs.