establish myself as your champion. There are others, no doubt, whose happiness lies in the fact that they may render you a service when it is in their power. I do not complain, however. Nay, I would even ask you to look upon me at least as a friend."

"I shall always regard you as a friend," Florence responds in a low voice. "It would be impossible to me to look upon you in any other light."

"Thank you for that," says Adrian quickly. "Though our lives must of necessity be much apart, it will still be a comfort to me to know that at least, wherever you may be, you will think of me as a friend."

"Ah," thinks Florence, with a bitter pang, "he is now trying to let me know how absurd was my former idea that he might perhaps learn to love me!" This thought is almost insupportable. Her pride rising in arms, she subdues all remaining traces of her late emotion, and, turning suddenly, confronts him. Her face is quite colorless, but she can not altogether hide from him the sadness that still desolates her eyes.

"You are right," she agrees. "In the future our lives will indeed be far distant from each other, so far apart that the very tie of friendship will readily be forgotten by us both."

"Florence, do not say that!" he entreats, believing in his turn that she alludes to her coming marriage with his cousin. "And—and—do not be angry with me; but I would ask you to consider long and earnestly before taking the step you have in view. Remember it is a bond that once sealed can never be canceled."

"A bond! I do not follow you," exclaims Florence, bewildered.

"Ah, you will not trust me; you will not confide in me!"

"I have nothing to confide," persists Florence, still deeply puzzled.

"Well, let it rest so," returns Adrian, now greatly wounded at her determined reserve, as he deems it. He calls to mind all Mrs. Talbot had said about her slyness, and feels disheartened. At least he has not deserved distrust at her hands. "Promise me," he entreats at last, "that, if ever you are in danger, you will accept my help."

"I promise," she replies faintly. Then, trying to rally her drooping spirits, she continues, with an attempt at a smile, "Tell me that you too will accept mine should you be in any danger. Remember, the mouse once rescued the lion!"—and she smiles again, and glances at him with a touch of her old archness.

"It is a bargain. And now, will you rest here awhile until you feel quite restored to calmness?"

"But you must not remain with me," Florence urges hurriedly. "Your guests are awaiting you. Probably"—with a faint smile—"your partner for this waltz is impatiently wondering what has become of you."

"I think not," says Adrian, returning her smile. "Fortunately I have no one's name on my card for this waltz. I say fortunately, because I think"—glancing at her tenderly—"I have been able to bring back the smiles to your face sooner than would have been the case had you been left here alone to brood over your trouble, whatever it may be."

"There is no trouble," declares Florence, in a somewhat distressed fashion, turning her head restlessly to one side. "I wish you would dispossess yourself of that idea. And, do not stay here, they—every one, will accuse you of discourtesy if you absent yourself from the ball-room any longer."

"Then, come with me," says Adrian. "See, this waltz is only just beginning: give it to me."

Carried away by his manner, she lays her hand upon his arm, and goes with him to the ball-room. There he passes his arm round her waist, and presently they are lost among the throng of whirling dancers, and both give themselves up for the time being to the mere delight of knowing that they are together.

Two people, seeing them enter thus together, on apparently friendly terms, regard them with hostile glances. Dora Talbot, who is coquetting sweetly with a gaunt man of middle age, who is evidently overpowered by her attentions, letting her eyes rest upon Florence as she waltzes past her with Sir Adrian, colors warmly, and, biting her lip, forgets the honeyed speech she was about to bestow upon her companion, who is the owner of a considerable property, and lapses into silence, for which the gaunt man is devoutly grateful, as it gives him a moment in which to reflect on the safest means of getting rid of her without delay.

Dora's fair brow grows darker and darker as she watches Florence, and notes the smile that lights her beautiful face as she makes some answer to one of Sir Adrian's sallies. Where is Dynecourt, that he has not been on the spot to prevent this dance, she wonders. She grows angry, and would have stamped her little foot with impatient wrath at this moment, but for the fear of displaying her vexation.

As she is inwardly anathematizing Arthur, he emerges from the throng, and, the dance being at an end, reminds Miss Delmaine that the next is his.

Florence unwillingly removes her hand from Sir Adrian's arm, and lays it upon Arthur's. Most disdainfully she moves away with him, and suffers him to lead her to another part of the room. And when she dances with him it is with evident reluctance, as he knows by the fact that she visibly shrinks from him when he encircles her waist with his arm.

Sir Adrian, who has noticed none of these symptoms, going up to Dora, solicits her hand for this dance.

"You are not engaged, I hope?" he says anxiously. It is a kind of wretched comfort to him to be near Florence's true friend. If not the rose, she has at least some connection with it.

"I am afraid I am," Dora responds, raising her limpid eyes to his. "Naughty man, why did you not come sooner? I thought you had forgotten me altogether, and so got tired of keeping barren spots upon my card for you."

"I couldn't help it—I was engaged. A man in his own house has always a bad time of it looking after the impossible people," says Adrian evasively.

"Poor Florence! Is she so very impossible?" asks Dora, laughing, but pretending to reproach him.

"I was not speaking of Miss Delmaine," says Adrian, flushing hotly. "She is the least impossible person I ever met. It is a privilege to pass one's time with her."

"Yet it is with her you have passed the last hour that you hint has been devoted to bores," returns Dora quietly. This is a mere feeler, but she throws it out with such an air of certainty that Sir Adrian is completely deceived, and believes her acquainted with his tête-à-tête with Florence in the dimly lit anteroom.

"Well," he admits, coloring again, "your cousin was rather upset by the acting, I think, and I just stayed with her until she felt equal to joining us all again."

"Ah!" exclaims Dora, who now knows all she had wanted to know.

"But you must not tell me you have no dances left for me," says Adrian gayly. "Come, let me see your card." He looks at it, and finds it indeed full. "I am an unfortunate," he adds.

"I think," says Dora, with the prettiest hesitation, "if you are sure it would not be an unkind thing to do, I could scratch out this name"—pointing to her partner's for the coming dance.

"I am not sure at all," responds Sir Adrian, laughing. "I am positive it will be awfully unkind of you to deprive any fellow of your society; but be unkind, and scratch him out for my sake."

He speaks lightly, but her heart beats high with hope.

"For your sake," she repeats softly drawing her pencil across the name written on her programme and substituting his.

"But you will give me more than this one dance?" queries Adrian. "Is there nobody else you can condemn to misery out of all that list?"

"You are insatiable," she returns, blushing, and growing confused. "But you shall have it all your own way. Here"—giving him her card—"take what waltzes you will." She waltzes to perfection, and she knows it.

"Then this, and this, and this," says Adrian, striking out three names on her card, after which they move away together and mingle with the other dancers.

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