“Hush—­sh!” said Ella, glancing nervously towards the door.  “There is a young lady up stairs, and it isn’t necessary for her to know you’ve been a pauper.”

By this time Miss Porter was dressed.  She was very fond of display, and wishing to astonish the “country girl” with her silks and satins, came rustling into the parlor.

“My sister,” said Ella carelessly.

Miss Porter nodded, and then throwing herself languidly upon the sofa, looked down the street, as if expecting some one.  At last, supporting herself on her elbow, she lisped out, “I don’t believe that he’th coming, for here ’tis after four!”

“Tisn’t likely he’ll stay in the graveyard all night,” returned Ella.  “I wish we’d asked him whose graves he was going to visit, don’t you?” Then, by way of saying something more to Mary, she continued, “Oh, you ought to know what an adventure I had yesterday.  It was a most miraculous escape, for I should certainly have been killed, if the most magnificent-looking gentleman you ever saw, hadn’t caught me just in time to keep Beauty from throwing me.  You ought to see his eyes, they were perfectly splendid!”

Mary replied, that she herself thought he had rather handsome eyes.

“You! where did you ever see him?” asked Ella.

“He visited my school yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh, no, that can’t be the one,” returned Ella, while Miss Porter, too, said, “Certainly not; our cavalier never thaw the inthide of a district school-houth, I know.”

“I am quite sure he saw one yesterday,” said Mary, relating the circumstance of Mr. Knight’s meeting him at the spot where Ella came so near getting a fall.

“Did he go home with you?” asked Ella, in a tone plainly indicating that a negative answer was expected.

Mary understood the drift of her sister’s questioning, and promptly replied, “Yes, he went home with me, and staid to tea.”

Ella’s countenance lowered, while Miss Porter exclaimed, “I declare, we may as well give up all hope, for your sister, it seems, has the first claim.”

“Pshaw!” said Ella, contemptuously, while Miss Porter, again turning to Mary, asked, “Did you learn his name?  If you did, you are more fortunate than we were; and he came all the way home with us, too, leading Ella’s pony; and besides that, we met him in the street this morning.”

“His name,” returned Mary, “is Stuart, and he lives in Boston, I believe.”

“Stuart,—­Stuart,—­” repeated Ella; “I never heard Lizzie Upton, or the Lincolns, mention the Stuarts, but perhaps they have recently removed to the city.  Any way, this young man is somebody, I know.”

Here Miss Porter, again looking down the road, exclaimed, “There, he’s coming, I do believe.”

Both girls rushed to the window, but Mr. Stuart was not there; and when they were reseated, Mary very gravely remarked, that he was probably ere this in Worcester, as she saw him in the eastern train.