"Well, to-day, as I happen to know," he replied importantly, "they have designs upon you in the shape of a Spring Flower Show at the Botanical Gardens. I don't suppose you'll care about it, but mother is one of those people who would be miserable if she did not arrange amusement for her guests; so, my dear Miss Fitzmaurice, you will have to make the best of it." "I shall like it very much," I replied. "Which of you will be going? You, I suppose?" He hesitated. "Well, no," he said, "I'm afraid not. I really am rather busy just now, and--that sort of thing is a change for Clarence after his office work. So, as you won't see much of me for the rest of the day, is it presumptuous of me to hope that will let me go over some of my work with for half-an-hour or so this morning? The library at the back of the house is really a pleasant room for a quiet talk--or, if you keep to your kind proposal of letting me read aloud to you, I should be most grateful." CHAPTER TWELVE. A FLOWER SHOW. Rupert's proposal was just what I was hoping for. I responded most cordially, feeling half ashamed of my real motive for so doing when I saw the unmistakable gratification in his eyes. So I resolved to do my best--but a small "best" at most--to help him, especially when, on following him to the library, I saw the little preparations he had already made there for my comfort, which he was half anxious, half shy about. The season was still early enough in the year for the weather to be very uncertain, if indeed in this so-called "temperate" zone of ours it is ever anything else. It was chilly enough to make a little fire acceptable, particularly in the large book-lined room with its heavy furniture and hangings and northern aspect. And to this my young host had seen. The flames danced merrily upwards, and a small table and eminently comfortable leathern arm-chair were drawn up at one side of the hearth. "Now," said Rupert, as he stooped for a footstool,--"now, Miss Fitzmaurice, make yourself thoroughly comfortable if you can, so as the better to bear the victimising before you." "Nonsense!" I said, laughing. "I don't feel the least like a victim; still less, however, like a judge! I shall just think you are giving me a pleasant morning's entertainment. But first, before we settle down, let me make a little tour of the room. New rooms, as well as new places of every kind, interest me," and I strolled round, glancing up at the shelves, and here and there stopping to read the title of one of the well-bound, mostly venerable-looking volumes. "It is an ugly old room," said Rupert. "You see, my people don't go in for modernising in any way. But still I think there is a charm about these gloomy, stately old London rooms."