Dora’s vail and bonnet hid her face from her father when she spoke to Maurice, and after a few fluttered sentences, she turned to Sybil, and asked if she might not go up stairs and see Gwyneth for a minute; so the two girls left the room together, with a word of apology to Victoria. Then Mr. Barham expressed a strong wish to see some alterations Mr. Huyton was making in his hot-houses, and Isabel said she should like to accompany them; Victoria politely offered to go with her, and as Charles seemed to regret leaving Mr. Duncan, both Maurice and Mr. Farrington volunteered to remain with him; while Mrs. Fielding, just then entering the room, declared it was her peculiar right to wait on and attend to him, when he was at “the Ferns.” Had Mr. Barham and Isabel intended to do what was most pleasant, but least profitable, to Dora and Maurice, they could hardly have arranged better. Sybil and her friend returned to the saloon, to find the party very much reduced; and as Mrs. Fielding was as good as her word, and entirely engrossed Mr. Duncan, Mr. Farrington enticed Sybil to sit down with him by the portfolio before alluded to, to tell him more about the beautiful sketches it contained; and she, quite unaware how little he had cared for them when only Victoria had turned them over, very good-naturedly complied with his request, and discussed the times and places where the sketches had been drawn, with such amusing vivacity, and in such graphic language, that he did not discover how time slipped by while so employed.