“Why, Lillian!” he exclaimed, astonished, and bestowing a puzzled look upon her downcast, agitated countenance; “will you miss me like that?” “Did you expect you could go away for so long and not be missed?” she asked, tremulously. “I confess I had not thought much about it,” he replied, gravely; “but I suppose, as we have all been brought up together, and had so much in common, that no one of us could go away without being missed. However, you will have Percy.” “But Percy is soon to go to the Grange, and will be so taken up with his interests there that we shall see but very little of him. Oh, Rupert, I wish there was no such place as America!” Lillian concluded, with quivering lips. “Bless you, little sister! I never thought that my going away would upset you like this,” Rupert said, laying his hand lightly on her shoulder, and really moved to see how she was taking it to heart. “Little sister!” she repeated, flushing crimson, and drawing her figure to its full height. She was very handsome at that moment, and Rupert wondered that he had not noticed of late how exceedingly lovely she had grown, while there was a nameless something in her expressive face, and even in her attitude, that thrilled him strangely. “Does that offend your young ladyship?” he questioned, laughing. “You are not so little after all, and I was unfortunate in my choice of an adjective; but you were such a tiny midget when I came here, eight years ago, that I have always regarded you as very _petite_.” “But I am not—your sister; we are not related at all,” she murmured. He started, and bent a puzzled look upon her. She was standing before him, with half-averted face, her darkly fringed lids almost touching her cheeks, her bosom heaving with the heavy pulsations of her heart. “True,” he returned, in a constrained tone, “and you must pardon me if I have presumed too far; but you must understand, Lillian, that it has become a natural consequence for me to regard you almost in that light, since one cannot live so many years in a family without becoming strongly attached to its members. I had flattered myself, too, that I had won at least a little corner in the hearts of my friends here.” “You have! you have! Oh, Rupert, I did not mean anything like that!” Lillian cried, in a distressed tone, and with visible agitation. “Then what did you mean? I do not understand you,” the young man asked, and leaned forward to look into her downcast face. Lillian lifted her great dark eyes to his for an instant, and his heart gave a startled bound at what he read in their dusky depths. Then the rich blood rushed in a crimson flood to her very brow, dyeing even her white neck with its rosy hue. At that moment a door of the conservatory opened and shut, and the girl started guiltily from his side. “There comes the gardener,” she said, with evident confusion, “and I must speak to him.”