But Flora’s future was in a fair way to take care of itself.  One day she came flying into the parlor with her face all aglow.  “O Mamita Lila,” exclaimed she, “I have had such a pleasant surprise!  I went to Mr. Goldwin’s store to do your errand, and who should I find there but Florimond Blumenthal!”

“And, pray, who is Florimond Blumenthal?” inquired Mrs. Delano.

“O, haven’t I told you?  I thought I had told you all about everybody and everything.  He was a poor orphan, that papa took for an errand-boy.  He sent him to school, and afterward he was his clerk.  He came to our house often when I was a little girl; but after he grew tall, papa used to send an old negro man to do our errands.  So I didn’t see him any more till cher papa died.  He was very kind to us then.  He was the one that brought those beautiful baskets I told you of.  Isn’t it funny?  They drove him away from New Orleans because they said he was an Abolitionist, and that he helped us to escape, when he didn’t know anything at all about it.  He said he heard we had gone to the North.  And he went looking all round in New York, and then he came to Boston, hoping to see us or hear from us some day; but he had about done expecting it when I walked into the store.  You never saw anybody so red as he was, when he held out his hand and said, in such a surprised way, ‘Miss Royal, is it you?’ Just out of mischief, I told him very demurely that my name was Delano.  Then he became very formal all at once, and said, ‘Does this silk suit you, Mrs. Delano?’ That made me laugh, and blush too.  I told him I wasn’t married, but a kind lady in Summer Street had adopted me and given me her name.  Some other customers came up to the counter, and so I had to come away.”

“Did you ask him not to mention your former name?” inquired Mrs. Delano.

“No, I hadn’t time to think of that,” replied Flora; “but I will ask him.”

“Don’t go to the store on purpose to see him, dear.  Young ladies should be careful about such things,” suggested her maternal friend.

Two hours afterward, as they returned from a carriage-drive, Flora had just drawn off her gloves, when she began to rap on the window, and instantly darted into the street.  Mrs. Delano, looking out, saw her on the opposite sidewalk, in earnest conversation with a young gentleman.  When she returned, she said to her:  “You shouldn’t rap on the windows to young gentlemen, my child.  It hasn’t a good appearance.”

“I didn’t rap to young gentlemen,” replied Flora.  “It was only Florimond.  I wanted to tell him not to mention my name.  He asked me about my sister, and I told him she was alive and well, and I couldn’t tell him any more at present.  Florimond won’t mention anything I request him not to,—­I know he won’t.”

Mrs. Delano smiled to herself at Flora’s quick, off-hand way of doing things.  “But after all,” thought she, “it is perhaps better settled so, than it would have been with more ceremony.”  Then speaking aloud, she said, “Your friend has a very blooming name.”