"Well, Enny, and what have you been doing with yourself all day?"

"Doing?" quoth she, gaily.

"Oh, all sorts of things, too numerous to be remembered or recounted."

"My good child, do you imagine I want you to deliver a whole catalogue of the day's sayings and doings?" he made answer, with a half-impatient smile. "Select two or three circumstances to enliven the present time; that! is all I want."

66 You find it so tasteless as to need such seasoning, do you?" laughed the maiden. “Well, then, I will pick out a few; but of their enlivening merits you must judge for yourself. For one thing, Dora and I met each other, according to appointment, after breakfast to walk to Riversdale Castle, to see whether the head gardener will be able, as usual, to give us any beautiful flowers for our fête, or, indeed, flowers of any kind."

"And can he?" questioned Charles, indifferently.

"Not so many as last year, on account of the return of the family; but all which are in full bloom at the time of our entertainment he

will cut for us. Well, that point settled, Dora and I amused ourselves wandering about the gardens and grounds, and bewailed over their little cared for, weed-grown condition."

"That must have been a very cheerful occupation for you both," rejoined Charles, lugubriously.

"Well, if you had heard how heartily we laughed as our conversation continued you would have thought so," said Ennis.

"That, of course, was treating the matter exactly as it deserved," retorted my cynical brother, smiling grimly.

"Do not say that till you have heard what it was; I doubt then if you will consider it a laughing matter, Mr. Charley, for it was one upon which you and I have disagreed very seriously."

"Indeed?" quoth he, with quickly clouding

face.

"Yes," saith she, her eyes flashing mischievously, "this was it. I was noticing everywhere the fast increasing signs of decaydecay creeping over and into every part of the neglected, magnificent old place and I said I felt quite glad to think it would no longer be

left from year's end to year's end, its picturesque beauties crumbling and wasting away, with none to mark even the ravages of time, but the owls and bats and daws. So far from that, it would now assume the gay and gorgeous appearance for which it was originally created; it would be brightened and decorated by splendidly dressed dames and courtly knights, and the rooms and marble halls would resound with voices and laughter-and so on, and so on," concluded the sweet damsel, her shyness and blushes gaining sway over her sprightliness as Charles's countenance loomed "darker and more dark with her words.

"And what said Dora to all this-this-" he stopped; a bitter, scornful expression was in his voice and features howbeit the opprobrious term, whatever it was, remained, to my comfort, unspoken.

"Oh, Dora and I have generally been on opposition sides on most points touching improvements and alterations in and about that ancient edifice," laughed Ennis; "and on this occasion, especially, she would not believe I was in earnest, declaring she should regard such changes as positive sacrilege. How could

knights and ladies of the present day be in keeping with such antiquated surroundings? Oh, no; flimsy improvements (I am sorry to say that was Dora's uncomplimentary term)

flimsy improvements in that style could only mar, not better, the condition of things here, &c."

"Quite right, Dora! quite right!" Charles saith, warmly, and looking down with much approving eyes on the pleased and blushing damsel; "I am entirely of your way of thinking entirely."

Methinks her gentle heart throbs far more quickly at his coldest, shortest word, than doth Ennis Denzell's for his longest and most flattering speech. Ah, that his understanding were enlightened to see and appreciate those excellent qualities in Dora's character, the which are so much more likely to conduce to the wedded happiness of a man of his peculiar temperament than is the sensitive, impetuous nature of Ennis Denzell.

"Well, I was not at all of Dora's opinion," said she, merrily. "I took a much more sensible, rational view of the affair."

"Rational!" repeated Charles, in an amused,

sarcastic tone; "the idea of your capricious young head giving birth to a rational conception on any point! if it ever did so in your life, child, it must have been by mistake."

Ennis blushed beauteously as she glanced at him; and little knew, the dear thing, how keenly avenged was her offended vanity by the retort she defiantly cast back.

"Well for my happiness, Mr. Charley, that I am so delightfully indifferent to your thinking me the simpleton you do!" and, as she pursued her lively chat of the castle, past, unheeded by her, did the deathly paleness stealing o'er his clouded countenance, and the clenching of his teeth and hands, after this her evidently honest assertion. Then came looks of bitter annoyance, as she discoursed rapturously of the coming entertainments, and divers merry-makings which were sure, she affirmed, to plentifully attend the stay of the great family in Riversdale. Painfully unpleasant, yea, and perplexing, to me was the expression that gleamed in his eyes as he said, in restrained tones,—

"A new phase of character seems developing itself in you, Ennis, the which your style of education has certainly not prepared me for