She is an amiable girl; I have nothing to say against her--but----" "But what, Belle ?" "I shouldn't like you to fall in love with her." "But I should, mamma!" cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation.

"I should like uncle Gil to love Marian just as I love her.

She is the dearest girl in the world.

When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who dressed the Christmas-tree--every bit; and she played the piano for us all the evening, didn't she, mamma ?" "She is very good-natured, Lucy; but you mustn't talk nonsense; and you ought not to listen when your uncle and I are talking.

It is very rude." "But! I can't help hearing you, mamma." They were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome red-brick house of the early Georgian era, which had been the property of the Listers ever since it was built.