With lowered lashes and a heart sinking heavily with its hopeless love and pain, Liane passed on with her friend, little dreaming that she was followed to her home by Devereaux, nor what dire consequences would follow on his learning her address. She was restless that night, and he haunted her dreams persistently, and on the morrow she rose tired, and pale, and sad, almost wishing she had not met him again, to have all the old pain and regret revived within her breast. The long day dragged away, and when she went home that evening she found awaiting her the Philadelphia magazine that had her beautiful face on the outside cover. Accompanying this was a batch of novels, together with a basket of fruit and a bunch of roses. "Hothouse roses and tropical fruit--you must have caught a rich beau, Liane!" cried Mrs. Brinkley, as she delivered the gifts. "Oh, no; there must be some mistake," she answered quickly, but her heart throbbed as she remembered the meeting with Devereaux yesterday, and she wondered if he could possibly be the donor. "Impossible!" she sighed to herself, as the woman continued: "There cannot be any mistake, for there is the card, tied to the basket, with 'Miss Liane Lester, with kind wishes of a true friend,' written on it. They came by a neat messenger boy, who would not answer a single question I asked him." "A charming mystery! Oh, what magnificent roses for the last of November!" cried Lizzie, inhaling their fragrance with delight, while Liane handed around the basket, generously sharing the luscious fruit with her friends. She was thinking all the while of the words Jesse Devereaux had said to her on the beach that never-to-be-forgotten night: "I will be a true friend to you." The card on the basket read the same: "A True Friend." It was enough to send the tremulous color flying to Liane's cheek, while a new, faint hope throbbed at her heart. Granny was out somewhere, or she would have got a scolding on suspicion of knowing the donor of the presents. She wisely kept the truth to herself, dividing the fruit with her friends, placing the books in her trunk, and the roses in a vase in Lizzie's room, though she longed very much to have them in her own. That night her dreams were sweet and rose-colored. She went to work with a blithe heart next morning, and, although it was the first day of December, and a light covering of snow lay on the roofs and pavements, she did not feel the biting wind pierce through her thin jacket; her pulse was bounding and her being in a glow because of the great scarlet rose pinned on her breast, seeming to shed a summer warmth and sweetness on the icy air--the warmth of hope and love. All day her visions were rose-colored, and her thoughts hovered about Devereaux until she almost forgot where she was, and was recalled unpleasantly to reality by a proud, impatient voice exclaiming: