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In the distance may be heard the plaintive drip-drip of many fountains. Roger, passing through one of the halls, and seeing Dulce and Mr. Gower standing before a huge Chelsea bowl of flowers, stops short, hesitates, and then, bon gre mal gre, goes up to them and makes some trivial remark that neither deserves an answer nor gets one.

"Not a bit more trouble. It is quite as easy to suppose there aren't, as to suppose there are. I don't mind. But to return to our muttons. I really do esteem our Carter in anticipation. It occurs to me he yet may grow peaches as big as my head, and then what a time we'll 'ave, eh? Eating fruit is my forte," says Mr. Browne, with unction. "So it is," says Dulce.

Presently tea is brought, and they are all happy, notably Dicky, who walks round and into the cakes with unceasing fervor. "By-the-by, I wonder Stephen hasn't been here to-day," says Julia, addressing no one in particular. "Something better to do, perhaps," says Portia. "Yes where can he be?" says Dulce, waking into sudden animation. "'Something better to do? Why, what could that be?"

"Portia," says Sir Christopher, suddenly when Stephen Gower has expressed his extreme pleasure at the thought of lunching at the Court, always with his dark eyes fixed curiously upon Dulce "Come with me; I want to show you your poor mother's last resting-place." "Ah! yes; I shall like to see that," says Portia, tenderly, though the dead mother is only a bare memory to her.

She repeats these last four words mechanically words that bear but the commonest meaning to him, but are linked in her mind with associations full of bitterness. "And you have no regrets?" regarding her keenly. "None." "And does no faintest spark of love for him rest in your heart? Oh, Dulce, take care!" "Love! I never loved," she says, turning her large eyes full on his.

"Your nature is incapable of comprehending all you have done. We will not discuss that subject. I have not brought you here to talk of myself, but of you. Let us confine ourselves to the business that has brought me to-day for the last time, I hope to the Court." His tone, which is extremely masterful, rouses Dulce to anger.

Your young man?" "It sounds like Martha's baker's boy," says Dulce, laughing; "but you may call Roger what you like. I wish with all my heart you could call him husband, as that would take him out of my way." They are standing on the balcony, and are looking toward the South.

"We were talking about you just before you came," says Dulce, with a little friendly nod, bending over his recumbent form, and making him a present of a very adorable smile. "We had all, you know, formed such different opinions about you." "What was your opinion," asks he, rising to a sitting posture with an alacrity not to be expected from a youth of his indolence.

"You do it on purpose," Dulce is saying in a tone in which tears and extreme wrath fight for mastery, "You torment me from morning till night. You are both rude and unkind to me. And now now what is it you have just said?" "What have I said?" asks Roger, who is plainly frightened. "What indeed! I should be ashamed to repeat it.

She will be rid of this hateful entanglement that has been embittering her life for months, and and, of course, he won't keep her to this absurd arrangement after a while. "You swear it?" "I swear it," says Dulce, answering as one might in a dream. Hers is a dream, happy to recklessness, in which she is fast losing herself.