“Your random firing seems to produce no confusion on the part of your game,” answered his cousin, withdrawing her gaze from Edna’s tranquil features, on which a half smile still lingered.

He did not seem to hear her words, but his eyebrows thickened, as he draw a couple of letters from his pocket and looked at the superscription.

Giving one to his mother, who sat looking over a newspaper, he crossed the room and silently laid the other on Edna’s lap.

It was post-marked in a distant city and directed in a gentleman’s large, round business handwriting.  The girl’s face flushed with pleasure as she broke the seal, glanced at the signature, and without pausing for a perusal, hastily put the letter into her pocket.

“Who can be writing to you, Edna?” asked Mrs. Murray, when she had finished reading her own letter.

“Oh! doubtless some Syrian scribe has indited a Chaldee billet-doux, which she can not spell out without the friendly aid of dictionary and grammar.  Permit her to withdraw and decipher it.  Meantime here comes Henry to announce dinner, and a plate of soup will strengthen her for her task.”

Mr. Murray offered his arm to his cousin, and during dinner he talked constantly, rapidly, brilliantly of men and things abroad; now hurling a sarcasm at Estelle’s head, now laughing at his mother’s expostulations, and studiously avoiding any further notice of Edna, who was never so thoroughly at ease as when he seemed to forget her presence.

Estelle sat at his right hand, and suddenly refilling his glass with bubbling champagne, he leaned over and whispered a few words in her ear that brought a look of surprise and pleasure into her eyes.  Edna only saw the expression of his face, and the tenderness, the pleading written there astonished and puzzled her.  The next moment they rose from the table, and as Mr. Murray drew his cousin’s hand under his arm, Edna hurried away to her own room.

Among the numerous magazines to which St. Elmo subscribed was one renowned for the lofty tone of its articles and the asperity of its carping criticisms, and this periodical Edna always singled out and read with avidity.

The name of the editor swung in terrorum in the imagination of all humble authorlings, and had become a synonym for merciless critical excoriation.

To this literary Fouquier Tinville, the orphan had daringly written some weeks before, stating her determination to attempt a book, and asking permission to submit the first chapter to his searching inspection.  She wrote that she expected him to find faults—­he always did; and she preferred that her work should be roughly handled by him, rather than patted and smeared with faint praise by men of inferior critical astuteness.

The anxiously expected reply had come at last, and as she locked her door and sat down to read it, she trembled from head to foot.  In the centre of a handsome sheet of tinted paper she found these lines: