“Give it to me, my dear; I will attend to it,” said Mrs. Paul; and straightway read the address. “I suppose this is your old schoolmistress. Mr. Fenton told me all about it.” Then, after turning the letter for a moment, “Keep it over a day!” “Not an hour,” said Nora, with decision, “My time is precious.” “Why, my dear,” said Mrs. Paul, “we shall be delighted to keep you a month.” “You are very good. You know I have my living to make.” “Don’t talk about that! I make _my_ living,—I know what it means! Come, let me talk to you as a friend. Don’t go too far. Suppose, now, you take it all back? Six months hence, it may be too late. If you leave him lamenting too long, he’ll marry the first pretty girl he sees. They always do,—a man refused is just like a widower. They’re not so faithful as the widows! But let me tell you it’s not every girl that gets such a chance; I would have snapped at it. He’ll love you the better, you see, for your having led him a little dance. But he mustn’t dance too long! Excuse the liberty I take; but Mr. Fenton and I, you see, are great friends, and I feel as if his cousin was my cousin. Take back this letter and give me just one word to post,—_Come_! Poor little man! You must have a high opinion of men, my dear, to play such a game with this one!” If Roger had wished for a proof that Nora still cared for him, he would have found it in the disgust she felt at hearing Mrs. Paul undertake his case. The young girl colored with her sense of the defilement of sacred things. George, surely, for an hour, at least, might have kept her story intact. “Really, madam,” she answered, “I can’t discuss this matter. I am extremely obliged to you.” But Mrs. Paul was not to be so easily baffled. Poor Roger, roaming helpless and hopeless, would have been amazed to hear how warmly his cause was being urged. Nora, of course, made no attempt to argue the case. She waited till the lady had exhausted her eloquence, and then, “I am a very obstinate person,” she said; “you waste your words. If you go any further I shall take offence.” And she rose, to signify that Mrs. Paul might do likewise. Mrs. Paul took the hint, but in an instant she had turned about the hard reverse of her fair face, in which defeated self-interest smirked horribly. “Bah! you’re a silly girl!” she cried; and swept out of the room. Nora, after this, determined to avoid a second interview with George. Her bad headache furnished a sufficient pretext for escaping it. Half an hour later he knocked at her door; quite too loudly, she thought, for good taste. When she opened it, he stood there, excited, angry, ill-disposed. “I am sorry you are ill,” he said: “but a night’s rest will put you right. I have seen Roger.” “Roger! is he here?”