And then for a minute or two there was silence. Erica, having finished her toasting, stirred the fire into a blaze, and Charles Osmond sat watching the fair, childish face which looked lovelier than ever in the soft glow of the fire light. What would her future be, he wondered. She seemed too delicate and sensitive for the stormy atmosphere in which she lived. Would the hard life embitter her, or would she sink under it? But there was a certain curve of resoluteness about her well-formed chin which was sufficient answer to the second question, while he could not but think that the best safeguard against the danger of bitterness lay in her very evident love and loyalty to her father. Erica in the meantime sat stroking her cat Friskarina, and wondering a little who her visitor could be. She liked him very much, and could not help responding to the bright kindly eyes which seemed to plead for confidence; though he was such an entire stranger she found herself quite naturally opening out her heart to him. “I am to take notes at my father's meeting tonight,” she said, breaking the silence, “and perhaps write the account of it afterward, too, and there's such a delightfully funny man coming to speak on the other side.” “Mr. Randolph, is it not?” “Yes, a sort of male Mrs. Malaprop. Oh, such fun!” and at the remembrance of some past encounter, Erica's eyes positively danced with laughter. But the next minute she was very grave. “I came to speak to Mr. Raeburn about this evening,” said Charles Osmond. “Do you know if he has heard of a rumor that this Mr. Randolph has hired a band of roughs to interrupt the meeting?” Erica made an indignant exclamation. “Perhaps that was what the telegram was about,” she continued, after a moment's thought. “We found it here when we came in. Father said nothing, but went out very quickly to answer it. Oh! Now we shall have a dreadful time of it, I suppose, and perhaps he'll get hurt again. I did hope they had given up that sort of thing.” She looked so troubled that Charles Osmond regretted he had said anything, and hastened to assure her that what he had heard was the merest rumor, and very possibly not true. “I am afraid,” she said, “it is too bad not to be true.” It struck Charles Osmond that that was about the saddest little sentence he had ever heard.