simple flowers in her sister's hair, with which, in her admiration 
of that youthful beauty, she had herself adorned it half-an-hour 
before, and which the dancing had disarranged.

'Oh!  Alfred sent the music, did he?' returned the Doctor.

'Yes.  He met it coming out of the town as he was entering early.  
The men are travelling on foot, and rested there last night; and as 
it was Marion's birth-day, and he thought it would please her, he 
sent them on, with a pencilled note to me, saying that if I thought 
so too, they had come to serenade her.'

'Ay, ay,' said the Doctor, carelessly, 'he always takes your 
opinion.'

'And my opinion being favourable,' said Grace, good-humouredly; and 
pausing for a moment to admire the pretty head she decorated, with 
her own thrown back; 'and Marion being in high spirits, and 
beginning to dance, I joined her.  And so we danced to Alfred's 
music till we were out of breath.  And we thought the music all the 
gayer for being sent by Alfred.  Didn't we, dear Marion?'

'Oh, I don't know, Grace.  How you tease me about Alfred.'

'Tease you by mentioning your lover?' said her sister.

'I am sure I don't much care to have him mentioned,' said the 
wilful beauty, stripping the petals from some flowers she held, and 
scattering them on the ground.  'I am almost tired of hearing of 
him; and as to his being my lover - '

'Hush!  Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, 
Marion,' cried her sister, 'even in jest.  There is not a truer 
heart than Alfred's in the world!'

'No-no,' said Marion, raising her eyebrows with a pleasant air of 
careless consideration, 'perhaps not.  But I don't know that 
there's any great merit in that.  I - I don't want him to be so 
very true.  I never asked him.  If he expects that I -  But, dear 
Grace, why need we talk of him at all, just now!'

It was agreeable to see the graceful figures of the blooming 
sisters, twined together, lingering among the trees, conversing 
thus, with earnestness opposed to lightness, yet, with love 
responding tenderly to love.  And it was very curious indeed to see 
the younger sister's eyes suffused with tears, and something 
fervently and deeply felt, breaking through the wilfulness of what 
she said, and striving with it painfully.

The difference between them, in respect of age, could not exceed 
four years at most; but Grace, as often happens in such cases, when 
no mother watches over both (the Doctor's wife was dead), seemed, 
in her gentle care of her young sister, and in the steadiness of 
her devotion to her, older than she was; and more removed, in 
course of nature, from all competition with her, or participation, 
otherwise than through her sympathy and true affection, in her 
wayward fancies, than their ages seemed to warrant.  Great 
character of mother, that, even in this shadow and faint reflection 
of it, purifies the heart, and raises the exalted nature nearer to 
the angels!

The Doctor's reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the 
purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry 
meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle 
imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed 
for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, 
and were always undeceived - always!

But, the home-adorning, self-denying qualities of Grace, and her 
sweet temper, so gentle and retiring, yet including so much 
constancy and bravery of spirit, seemed all expressed to him in the 
contrast between her quiet household figure and that of his younger 
and more beautiful child; and he was sorry for her sake - sorry for 
them both - that life should be such a very ridiculous business as 
it was.

The Doctor never dreamed of inquiring whether his children, or 
either of them, helped in any way to make the scheme a serious one.  
But then he was a Philosopher.

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over 
that common Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than 
the object of the alchemist's researches), which sometimes trips up 
kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold 
to dross and every precious thing to poor account.

'Britain!' cried the Doctor.  'Britain!  Holloa!'

A small man, with an uncommonly sour and discontented face, emerged 
from the house, and returned to this call the unceremonious 
acknowledgment of 'Now then!'

'Where's the breakfast table?' said the Doctor.

'In the house,' returned Britain.

'Are you going to spread it out here, as you were told last night?' 
said the Doctor.  'Don't you know that there are gentlemen coming?  
That there's business to be done this morning, before the coach 
comes by?  That this is a very particular occasion?'