sit reading in the small parlor we dare to call our own, I am startled by Dora's abrupt entrance. Her outdoor garments are on her; her whole appearance is full of woe; suspicious circles surround her eyes. I rise fearfully and hasten towards her. Surely if anything worthy of condemnation has occurred it is impossible but I must have a prominent part in it. Has the irreproachable Dora committed a crime? Is she in disgrace with our domestic tyrant.

"Dora, what has happened?" I ask, breathlessly.

"Oh, nothing," returns Dora, reckless misery in her tone; "nothing to signify; only--Billy was right--I am quite positive he never cared for me--has not the slightest intention of proposing to me."

"What? who?" I demand, in my charming definite way.

"Who?" with impatient reproach. "Who is there in this miserable forgotten spot to propose to anyone, except--Mr. Carrington?"

"What have you heard, Dora?" I ask, light breaking in upon my obscurity.

"Heard? Nothing. I would not have believed it, if I had heard it. I saw it with my own eyes. An hour ago I put on my things and went out for a walk, intending to go down by the river; but just as I came to the shrubberies, and while I was yet hidden from view, I saw Mr. Carrington and that horrid dog of his standing on the bank just below me. I hesitated for a moment about going forward. I didn't quite like," says Dora, modestly, "to force myself upon him for what would look so like a _tete-a-tete_; and while I waited, unable to make up my mind, he"--a sob--"took out of his waistcoat a large gold locket and opened it, and"--a second heavy sob--"and after gazing at it for a long time, as though he were going to eat it"--a final sob, and an inclination towards choking--"he stooped and kissed it. And, oh! of course it was some odious woman's hair or picture or something," cries Dora, breaking down altogether, and sinking with rather less than her usual grace into the withered arm-chair that adorns that corner of our room.A terrible suspicion, followed by as awful a sense of conviction, springs to life within me. The word "picture" has struck an icy chill to my heart. Can it by any possibility be my photograph he has been so idiotically and publicly embracing? Am I the fell betrayer of my sister's happiness? 

A moment later I almost smile at my own fears. Is it likely any man, more especially one who has seen so much of the world as Mr. Carrington, would find anything worth kissing in my 

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