Vance and the surgeon prevented the movement. The patient stared, and said: “You’ve done it agin, have yer? What’s yer name?” “This is Mr. Vance,” replied the surgeon. “Vance! Vance!” said the patient, as if trying to force his memory to some particular point. Then he added: “Can’t do it! And yit I’ve seen him afore somewhar.” “Well, my poor fellow, I must leave you. Good by.” “Why, this hand is small and white as a woman’s!” said the patient, touching Vance’s fingers carefully as he might have touched some fragile flower. “Yer’ll come agin to see me,—woan’t yer?” “Yes, I’ll not forget it.”—“Call to-morrow, will yer?”—“Yes, if I’m alive I’ll call.”—“Thahnk yer, strannger. Good by.” Giving a few dollars to the surgeon for the patient’s benefit, Vance quitted the hospital. An hour afterwards, in his room at the St. Charles, he penned and sent this note:— “TO PERDITA: I shall not be able to see you again to-day. Content yourself as well as you can in the company of Mozart and Beethoven, Bellini and Donizetti, Irving and Dickens, Tennyson and Longfellow. The company is not large, but you will find it select. Unless some very serious engagement should prevent, I will see you to-morrow. VANCE.” This little note was read and re-read by Clara, till the darkness of night came on. She studied the forms of the letters, the curves and flourishes, all the peculiarities of the chirography, as if she could derive from them some new hints for her incipient hero-worship. Then, lighting the gas, she acted on the advice of the letter, by devoting herself to the performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Vance meanwhile, after a frugal dinner, eliminated from luxurious viands, rang the bell, and sent his card to Miss Tremaine. Laura’s mother was an invalid, and Laura herself, relieved from maternal restraint, had been lately in the habit of receiving and entertaining company, much to her own satisfaction, as she now had an enlarged field for indulging a propensity not uncommon among young women who have been much admired and much indulged. Laura was a predestined flirt. Had she been brought up between the walls of a nunnery, where the profane presence of a man had never been known, she would instinctively have launched into coquetry the first time the bishop or the gardener made his appearance.