“You are an incorrigible little rattle-brain, Ella, and, to punish you, I have a great mind to declare I will not enter your party.  How would you like that?”

“I am not in the least alarmed, brother dear, that that threat will be carried into execution, for the very good and sufficient reason, that you would thus punish yourself worse than me.  But if I stand talking any longer, my invitations will not be written in season, so I must defer our very edifying conversation till another opportunity,”—­and, humming a favorite air, the lively girl danced gaily out of the room.

Arthur, left alone, stood for a moment musing, half amused and half vexed with his sister.  He scarcely had ever mentioned Agnes’s name, and yet, he could not conceal from himself that he felt an interest in her, beyond that he had ever experienced for any other woman.

“Absence is love’s food,” so poets say, and Arthur proved the truth of the observation.  While spending his college vacations at home, he had often met with her before; and, even then, she charmed him as no other woman ever did, but when report told of her engagement to Edward Lincoln, honor forbade him any longer to cherish hopes which he had allowed to tint with their bright hues his dreams of the future.

He had shunned her society as far as possible from that time while at home, and striven, while at college and during his year’s sojourn in foreign lands, to banish her image from his remembrance, and vainly imagined he had succeeded; but the flame, though it may be dimmed, was by no means quenched, and was ready, at the slightest encouragement, to burst forth with renewed vigor.

But we have digressed.  Mrs. Bernard’s drawing-room presented a picture of comfort and elegance as Agnes entered it on the evening of Ella’s party.  A few select friends were gathered there, all apparently perfectly at home, and amusing themselves without restraint, according to their diversified inclinations.  Some were examining the choice engravings that lay scattered on the tables; others were standing in a group round the piano, admiring some new music which Ella had that day received; while the elder members of the party were gathered round the fireside, enjoying its cheerful blaze, and merrily discussing the events of the season.  Innocent amusement seemed to be the rule of the evening, and Agnes, though she had left home unusually depressed in spirits, felt a glow of pleasure thrill through her heart as she contemplated the scene, and responded with her usual sweet, though, latterly, pensive smile, the kind greetings of her friends.

“How pale Miss Wiltshire looks to-night,” observed one young lady to another who was seated at the piano as Agnes entered the apartment.

“She does, indeed, pale and sad both,” was the response.

Arthur, who had overheard the remark, could not help admitting to himself its correctness, as he crossed the room to pay his respects to Agnes, and as, unobserved, he watched her closely, it was evident to him that, while with her usual unselfishness, she strove to promote the happiness of others by entering cheerfully into conversation, from the half suppressed sigh, and the shadow that at intervals stole over her face, some painful subject, very foreign from the scene around, occupied her thoughts.