“Well, I’m such a sad, idle creature, and I thought if you would come to me, sometimes, and help me get through a perfect pyramid of embroidery, and work that has been accumulating since the year one, I should be so delighted.” “I shall be very glad of the work, Miss Halstead, and I thank you heartily for remembering me.” “Oh! don’t speak that way. It’s I that ought to thank you! Why, it will be a perfect treat just to sit and look at anybody as beautiful as you are.” “And I shall have that satisfaction over and above the satisfaction of getting the work, of which I am so very, very glad.” There was an earnestness in her voice which sobered the volatile creature who listened. Her life had been such a fairy dream that it was difficult for her to realize there were such evils as care and poverty in the world. It seemed so inexplicable to her that this beautiful girl could come, day after day, in actual contact with them. “I will try and make it pleasant for you,” she said, more gravely than she often spoke. “I am a spoiled, selfish girl, but I mean to be good.” “I think you would find it difficult to be any thing else,” Anna said, heartily. “Oh! you don’t know. Aunt Eliza reads me the most frightful lectures; by the way, she is a sad, catty old maid; but don’t you mind her.” Then she began talking with her accustomed volubility; and it was as bewitching to poor, lonely Anna as the Arabian Nights are to children. It seemed so strange to have these glimpses at a young life so widely separated from the clouds that hung over her own youth. Georgiana Halstead never did things by halves; and in her usual headlong way, she had plunged into a violent interest for this lovely stranger, and sat there talking to her as freely as if she had known her half a life. “I must be going!” she exclaimed, at last. “Oh, dear me! I have been out ages; and Aunt Eliza is waiting for the carriage; how she will scold me! Then you’ll come, miss? Mayn’t I call you Anna?” “Indeed you may.” “Thanks! I like you so much. You are like a picture, or a poem. Now, please like me.” “Just as a prisoner might the sunlight!” exclaimed Anna, with unconscious earnestness. Georgiana gave her a hearty kiss, and a cordial pressure of the hand. “Come to-morrow,” she said. “Now wont you?” Before Anna could answer, there was a knock at the door, which startled them both—they had been so completely absorbed. “Who is that?” Georgiana asked. “Only some of the neighbors, probably,” Anna answered. “Come in, please.” The door opened. The girls turned simultaneously toward it, and there stood Horace Savage. He advanced without any hesitation, saying, “Excuse my intrusion, Miss Burns. Ah, Miss Georgiana, this is an unexpected pleasure.” The girl’s brow contracted slightly; her quick glance went from one to the other. “And to me, also,” she said.