“Yes, my beloved, and no hungry heart ever feasted upon sweeter words. They changed the whole future for me, and I was intending to start again for America in just three weeks, to search for the star of my life; the past has been very lonely and hopeless.” “Yes, indeed,” Star returned, with a long sigh; “and yet,” she added, looking up with a smile, “I am glad that I am not to come to you _quite_ so empty-handed as you found me.” “You surely do not regret the promise that you made me then?” Lord Carrol questioned, reproachfully. “No; for it proves that you won me for myself alone; but now that I know you are a peer of England, it is a comfort to feel that no one can point the finger of scorn at me and say that you have chosen beneath you.” He stopped her with a tender caress. “No one should ever have said that to me with impunity, under any circumstances,” he rejoined, gravely. They talked a long time, and everything was explained—all the events of the past rehearsed, all Josephine’s duplicity and hatred made known. “She is a heartless woman—a most contemptible woman,” Lord Carrol said, with curling lips and stern brow; “and I deeply regret that she is to become a resident in England, as we shall doubtless be obliged to meet her in society. She has wronged you shamefully, my darling. However,” he added, with a luminous smile, “she considers that the ‘position of Lady Carrol will be an enviable one,’ and, since _you_ are to fill it, I think her punishment will not be a light one.” Her punishment _was_ to be no light one, but _he_ had no idea _how_ humiliating it would be. Another blissful half hour slipped unheeded by, and then he said: “Come, dear; people will begin to wonder what has become of us, and besides, I want to introduce you to my mother and sister.” He arose as he spoke, and drew her toward the conservatory, through which they must pass in order to regain the drawing-room. “I have already seen your sister,” Star answered, with a bright smile, “and I began to love her immediately, and to mourn what I had lost in not having her for _my_ sister, too.” “She _is_ a dear girl, but I begin to think we shall not keep her with us very much longer,” Archie returned, with a regretful sigh. “I thought so, too, when Mr. Meredith introduced her to me to-night,” Star said, archly. “Ah! then _you_ read the signs of the times,” he answered, smiling. “But here comes my mother, and she is looking for me, I know, by the expression of her face.” They were just entering the drawing-room as he spoke, and Lady Sherbrooke was coming toward them, looking right and left for her son. Her handsome face lighted as she saw him, and she quickened her steps, while she wondered at that new light in his eyes, at the bright and youthful expression on his face. “Mother,” Archibald Sherbrooke said, and there was a proud ring in his tone, “I want to introduce to you Miss Gladstone, a friend whom I met while I was in America.”