“His name was Franz,” rejoined Flora; “but Mamita called him Florimond, because he had such pink cheeks; and he liked Mamita so much, that he always writes his name Franz Florimond.  We always had so many flowery names mixed up with our olla-podrida talk. Your name is flowery too.  I used to say Mamita would have called you Lady Viola; but violet colors and lilac colors are cousins, and they both suit your complexion and your name, Mamita Lila.”

After dinner, she began to play and sing with more gayety than she had manifested for many a day.  While her friend played, she practised several new dances with great spirit; and after she had kissed good-night, she went twirling through the door, as if music were handing her out.

Mrs. Delano sat awhile in revery.  She was thinking what a splendid marriage her adopted daughter might make, if it were not for that stain upon her birth.  She was checked by the thought:  “How I have fallen into the world’s ways, which seemed to me so mean and heartless when I was young!  Was I happy in the splendid marriage they made for me?  From what Flora lets out occasionally, I judge her father felt painfully the anomalous position of his handsome daughters.  Alas! if I had not been so weak as to give him up, all this miserable entanglement might have been prevented.  So one wrong produces another wrong; and thus frightfully may we affect the destiny of others, while blindly following the lead of selfishness.  But the past, with all its weaknesses and sins, has gone beyond recall; and I must try to write a better record on the present.”

As she passed to her sleeping-room, she softly entered the adjoining chamber, and, shading the lamp with her hand, she stood for a moment looking at Flora.  Though it was but a few minutes since she was darting round like a humming-bird, she was now sleeping as sweetly as a babe.  She made an extremely pretty picture in her slumber, with the long dark eyelashes resting on her youthful cheek, and a shower of dark curls falling over her arm.  “No wonder Alfred loved her so dearly,” thought she.  “If his spirit can see us, he must bless me for saving his innocent child.”  Filled with this solemn and tender thought, she knelt by the bedside, and prayed for blessing and guidance in the task she had undertaken.

The unexpected finding of a link connected with old times had a salutary effect on Flora’s spirits.  In the morning, she said that she had had pleasant dreams about Rosabella and Tulee, and that she didn’t mean to be homesick any more.  “It’s very ungrateful,” added she, “when my dear, good Mamita Lila does so much to make me happy.”

“To help you keep your good resolution, I propose that we go to the Athenaeum,” said Mrs. Delano, smiling.  Flora had never been in a gallery of paintings, and she was as much pleased as a little child with a new picture-book.  Her enthusiasm attracted attention, and visitors smiled to see her clap her hands, and to hear her little shouts of pleasure or of fun.  Ladies said to each other, “It’s plain that this lively little adoptee of Mrs. Delano’s has never been much in good society.”  And gentlemen answered, “It is equally obvious that she has never kept vulgar company.”