charm,—arising from such a study. If I might be allowed to offer myself as an instructor, to call upon you sometimes for that purpose, and sometimes to be your companion in your excursions to your garden; in describing to you the wonderful structure, order, and beauty of plants, I should unfold to your infinitely comprehensive mind, such an expansion of ideas, such a field for the exercise as also the recreation of its talents, that the small portion of my time and trouble thus employed would be more than tenfold rewarded in the effects produced in you."
Having reached home, Rosilia had but time to express her thanks for so obliging an offer. Sir Howard had already taken leave of Mrs. De Brooke, but he still lingered at the open door ere he departed, apparently to make his bow to Rosilia. His dark brows were closely knit as he passed her, and glancing at Melliphant, the happy Melliphant! as he conceived him, a look of stern indignation, he rushed by and was presently out of sight.
Though this conduct of Sir Howard was noticed by Melliphant, he seemed to treat it with the coolest indifference; taking from his pocket a book on leaving Rosilia, he presented it to her, saying, "May I beg of you the favour to take this, and may I hope you will look into it; it treats of botany."
Rosilia was about complying, but a kind Providence shielding her, suggested the idea that by accepting the offered work, and by admitting Melli-
