"I'm glad he did!" cried Rose, warmly; then checked herself, and said with a patient sort of sigh, "You know women always want the men they care for to be good, and can't help trying to make them so." "So they do; and we ought to be a set of angels: but I've a strong conviction that, if we were, the dear souls wouldn't like us half as well. Would they now?" asked Charlie, with an insinuating smile. "Perhaps not; but that is dodging the point. Will you go?" persisted Rose, unwisely. "No, I will not." That was sufficiently decided; and an uncomfortable pause followed, during which Rose tied a knot unnecessarily tight, and Charlie went on exploring the drawer with more energy than interest. "Why, here's an old thing I gave you ages ago!" he suddenly exclaimed in a pleased tone, holding up a little agate heart on a faded blue ribbon. "Will you let me take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh?" he asked, half in earnest, half in jest, touched by the little trinket and the recollections it awakened. "No, I will not," answered Rose, bluntly, much displeased by the irreverent and audacious question. Charlie looked rather abashed for a moment; but his natural light-heartedness made it easy for him to get the better of his own brief fits of waywardness, and put others in good humor with him and themselves. "Now we are even: let's drop the subject and start afresh," he said with irresistible affability, as he coolly put the little heart in his pocket, and prepared to shut the drawer. But something caught his eye, and exclaiming, "What's this? what's this?" he snatched up a photograph which lay half under a pile of letters with foreign post-marks. "Oh! I forgot that was there," said Rose, hastily. "Who is the man?" demanded Charlie, eying the good-looking countenance before him with a frown. "That is the Honorable Gilbert Murry, who went up the Nile with us, and shot crocodiles and other small deer, being a mighty hunter, as I told you in my letters," answered Rose gayly, though ill-pleased at the little discovery just then; for this had been one of the narrow escapes her uncle spoke of. "And they haven't eaten him yet, I infer from that pile of letters?" said Charlie, jealously. "I hope not. His sister did not mention it when she wrote last." "Ah! then she is your correspondent? Sisters are dangerous things sometimes." And Charlie eyed the packet suspiciously. "In this case, a very convenient thing; for she tells me all about her brother's wedding as no one else would take the trouble to do." "Oh! well, if he's married, I don't care a straw about him. I fancied I'd found out why you are such a hard-hearted charmer. But, if there is no secret idol, I'm all at sea again." And Charlie tossed the photograph into the drawer, as if it no longer interested him. "I'm hard-hearted because I'm particular, and, as yet, do not find any one at all to my taste." "No one?" with a tender glance.