gifted with this auroral cheer which starts the day so brightly. At sight of her face Mr. Sylvester dropped his paper, and even Miss Belinda straightened herself more energetically. “Merry Christmas,” cried her sweet young voice, and immediately the whole day seemed to grow glad with promise and gaysome with ringing sleigh-bells. “It’s snowing, did you know it? A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy. It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything.”
“Yes,” said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, “everything.”
Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester’s grave and watchful countenance.
“ Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance,” observed Miss Belinda easily. “How he could know that you were to be in town today, I cannot imagine.”
“I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester,” explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast. “I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas.”
There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, “It is a very pretty remembrance,” led the way into the dining-room. Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.
A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal. A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda’s stirring conversation found it