"For my part, I ask nothing better than John." "Let me arrange for you, while you read your letter," said Letitia, taking the flowers from her friend's hands.
Miss Grace took down the letter from the mantelpiece, opened, and began to read it.

Miss Letitia, meanwhile, watched her face, as we often carelessly watch the face of a person reading a letter.
Miss Grace was not technically handsome, but she had an interesting, kindly, sincere face; and her friend saw gradually a dark cloud rising over it, as one watches a shadow on a field.
When she had finished the letter, with a sudden movement she laid her head forward on the table among the flowers, and covered her face with her hands.

She seemed not to remember that any one was present.
[Illustration: "She laid her head forward on the table."] Letitia came up to her, and, laying her hand gently on hers, said, "What is it, dear ?" Miss Grace lifted her head, and said in a husky voice,-- "Nothing, only it is so sudden! John is engaged!" "Engaged! to whom ?" "To Lillie Ellis." "John engaged to Lillie Ellis ?" said Miss Ferguson, in a tone of shocked astonishment.
"So he writes me.

He is completely infatuated by her." "How very sudden!" said Miss Letitia.

"Who could have expected it?
Lillie Ellis is so entirely out of the line of any of the women he has ever known." "That's precisely what's the matter," said Miss Grace.