His clasp of the girl’s hand was close, but she withdrew it, and her face flushed painfully as she answered: 

“Will you excuse me, Sir Roger, when I tell you that I am so constantly occupied I have not time to write, even to my old and dearest friends.”

Passing the door of Felix’s room, on her way to her own apartment, to boy called to her:  “Miss Earl, are you very tired?”

“Oh, no.  Do you want anything?”

“My head aches and I can’t go to sleep.  Please read to me a little while.”

He raised himself on his elbow, and looked up fondly at her.

“Ah! how very pretty you are to-night!  Kiss me, won’t you?”

She stooped and kissed the poor parched lips, and as she opened a volume of the Waverly Novels, he said: 

“Did you see Miss Morton?”

“Yes; she was on horseback, and we passed her twice.”

“Glad of it!  She does not like you.  I guess she finds it as hard to get to sleep to-night as I do.”

Edna commenced reading, and it was nearly an hour before Felix’s eyes closed, and his fingers relaxed their grasp on hers.  Softly she put the book back on the shelf, extinguished the light, and stole upstairs to her desk.  That night, as Sir Roger tossed restlessly on his pillow, thinking of her, recalling all that she had said during the drive, he would not have been either comforted or flattered by a knowledge of the fact that she was so entirely engrossed by her Ms. that she had no thought of him or his impending departure.

When the clock struck three she laid down her pen; and the mournful expression that crept into her eyes told that memory was busy with the past years.  When she fell asleep she dreamed not of Sir Roger but of Le Bocage and its master, of whom she would not permit herself to think in her waking hours.

The influence which Mr. Manning exerted over Edna increased as their acquaintance ripened; and the admiring reverence with which she regarded the editor was exceedingly flattering to him.  With curious interest he watched the expansion of her mind, and now and then warned her of some error into which she seemed inclined to plunge, or wisely advised some new branch of research.

So firm was her confidence in his nature and dispassionate judgment, that she yielded to his opinions a deferential homage, such as she had scarcely paid even to Mr. Hammond.

Gradually and unconsciously she learned to lean upon his strong, clear mind, and to find in his society a quiet but very precious happiness.  The antagonism of their characters was doubtless one cause of the attraction which each found in the other, and furnished the balance-wheel which both required.

Edna’s intense and dreamy idealism demanded a check, which the positivism of the editor supplied; and his extensive and rigidly accurate information, on almost all scientific topics, constituted a valuable treasury of knowledge to which he never denied her access.