"All the pomp of earth had vanished, Falsehood and deceit were banished, Reason spake more loud than passion, And the truth wore no disguise." —LONGFELLOW. HALF of Fulvia's twenty-first birthday was over, and she had not yet seen Mr. Browning. It had been a most uneventful day thus far. Fulvia had presents from all in the house, except Mr. Browning. Nigel gave her a gold locket; Ethel sent a dainty basket arrangement of holly and ferns; old school friends wrote letters; but nothing had occurred to mark the fact that on this day Fulvia Rolfe would, or should, come into possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds. She had not even donned a better dress for the occasion, which was a Grange fashion on birthdays. Mr. Browning would remark the change, Fulvia thought. After all, the dress she wore daily could not have been improved upon. It was a fine navy-blue cloth, fitting perfectly. She did add lace ruffles and the new locket, and she dressed her hair with extra particularity. Care bestowed upon that mass of reddish-golden-brown was always repaid. Fulvia looked well, almost handsome. She was conscious of the fact, and conscious that Nigel noticed it with brotherly interest—only Fulvia unhappily did not count the interest to be brotherly. Nigel liked his sisters to look their best; and a little earlier he would have told Fulvia, without hesitation, as one of the three, that she had turned herself out successfully for the occasion. He was growing cautious now, however, and so he said nothing, not guessing that she saw the thought in his face, and misconstrued the silence. He was in higher spirits than he had been for many weeks, nobody guessing why. Nobody knew of the interview in the vestry. Even the knowledge of his father's state could not depress him, this first morning after the lifting of his own heavy cloud, though it did keep down, to a moderate pitch, the spirits which would otherwise have been wild. He had his dreamy spells, too; going over and over in mind the words which had passed between him and Ethel, wondering whether he had taken it too much for granted that she might care for him, and whether he had said enough to be understood, but always coming round to a glad remembrance of the last emphatic "Yes! Yes!" The sunshine in his eyes perplexed Fulvia; he had been so grave lately. Then she made up her mind that her birthday was the cause; he wanted to please her by making it a cheerful day. Fulvia responded to the supposed wish with all her heart. There had not been such an amount of fun in the breakfast-room for many a week, as on that morning of December 21st.