"No--do not be angry with me, Elsie," said Margaret, taking the hand that had been temporarily released. "You have no cause. I have been speaking against my own heart all the while, much more than against the man whom I truly love. I know him to be noble and true, and I will believe him brave. Are you satisfied? Kiss me!" and the proud, statuesque face once more lost its gravity, to bring back all the joyousness into the rounder and merrier one from which it had temporarily departed. The light summer jockey-hat of Elsie lay just within the door, on a chair. With a quick glance at the watch hidden under her waist-riband, she stepped within the door, threw on her hat, and was about to terminate her somewhat prolonged morning-call, when Margaret took it off again, dropped it into one of the vacant chairs, and said: "No--do not go away. You have nothing to do at home--mother has gone down to the city for the day, you know, and I shall be lonely. We shall have some lunch--you may call it dinner if it will taste any better,--very soon. Stay till the afternoon--cannot you do so, just as well as not?" "I suppose so--no, I must see Carlton--yes, though, Carlton will be quite as likely to come here first as to go home, if he has arranged to go away--yes, I will stay if you wish it so much!" rapidly answered the little one. "That is a good girl," said Margaret Hayley, just as she might have patted a school hobby-de-hoy on the head. "Now run into the parlor and get the very nicest book you can find, draw the easy-chair out of the hall, and enjoy yourself the best you can for just twenty minutes, while I go down to the kitchen, in ma's place, and see what progress our new Dutch cook has been making." She disappeared with the words, and her injunctions were acted upon almost as rapidly. In half a minute Elsie had the arm-chair out of the hall, and an illustrated work off one of the tables in the parlor, and was prepared for her short period of indolent enjoyment. CHAPTER II. THE COMING OF CARLTON BRAND--ALMOST A PALADIN OF BALAKLAVA--BROTHER AND SISTER--A SPASM OF SHAME--THE CONFESSION--THE COWARD--HOW MARGARET HAYLEY HEARD MANY WORDS NOT INTENDED FOR HER--THE RUPTURE AND THE SEPARATION. Not long was the young girl, left at the close of the last chapter bodily ensconced in an easy-chair on the broad piazza, and mentally absorbed in the attractions of one of the choicest books in Margaret Hayley's collection, allowed to pursue her reading undisturbed. Not two minutes had elapsed when a horseman, riding a chestnut horse of handsome appearance and fine action, came rapidly up from the direction of the city, dismounted with the same practised grace that he had shown when in the saddle, threw the rein of his horse over one of the posts standing near the gate, opened that gate and came up the walk, without attracting the attention of the young lady on the piazza, or that of any other occupant of the house he was approaching.