She was eighteen years old and would graduate in a few weeks, yet Elsie looked like a child, lying there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had flung them, one by one, from a bouquet she was still tearing to pieces. A frown was on her pretty forehead, and her large violet eyes shone feverishly. It was seldom anything half so lovely appeared in the confined sleeping rooms of that highly fashionable boarding school. Indeed, since its foundation it is doubtful if a creature half so beautiful as Elsie Mellen had ever slept within its walls.

Just as the girl had littered the whole bed with flowers, which she broke and crushed as a child breaks the toys he is weary of, the door of the room opened, and a young lady entered, with a plate of hot-house grapes in her hand. She was older than the sick girl by two or three years, and in all respects a grave and most womanly contrast. Calm, gracious and dignified, she came forward with an air of protection and sat down by the bed, holding out her grapes.

"See what your brother has sent you."

The girl started up and flung back the hair from her face.

"From Piney Bend," she exclaimed, lifting one of the purple clusters in her hand, and crowding two or three of the grapes into her mouth at once, with the delicious greed of a naughty child. "Oh, how cool and nice. Dear old Grant, I wonder when he is coming."

"Sometime to-day, the messenger said," answered the young lady, and a soft peach-like bloom swept over her face as she spoke.

Elsie was looking at her friend; and a quick, mischievous light came into her own face.

"Bessie," she murmured, in a voice mellowed and muffled by the grapes in her mouth. "Don't tell me anything—only I think—I think—oh! wouldn't it be fun?—there, there, how you are blushing."

"Blushing, how foolish! But I am glad to see you well enough even to talk nonsense."

"Nonsense! look here, Miss Prim: if you're not in love with my brother Grantley Mellen, I never was in love with anybody in my life."

"Elsie!"

"There, there! I shan't believe a word you say—more than that, I believe he's in love with you."

No blushes burned that noble face now, for it grew white with a great surprise, and for a moment Elizabeth Fuller's heart ceased to beat.

Could this be true! These light, careless words from a young girl seemed to shake the foundation of her life. Did she love the man, who for three weeks had been a daily visitor in that sick room, whose voice had been music to her, whose eyes had been so often lifted to hers in tender gratitude. Could her heart have proved so cruelly rebellious? Then the other impossible things the girl had hinted at. Elsie had not meant it for cruelty, but still it was very cruel, to startle her with glimpses of a heaven she never must enter. What was she but a poor orphan girl, teaching in that school in order to pay for the tuition which had refined and educated her into the noble woman she unconsciously was. Of course Mr. Mellen was grateful for the care she had taken of his beautiful sister, and that was all. Elsie was almost well now, and would leave the school that term. After that there was little chance that she would ever see Grantley Mellen again.

"What on earth are you thinking about?" questioned Elsie, still busy with her grapes. "Just tell me if we are to be sisters,—and I'm set on it—you shall know all my secrets; it'll be so nice to have some one that won't tell,—and I'll know yours. To begin, dear old Bessie: somebody sent me these flowers, and I hate 'em. It's my way. So many at once, it stifles me. I wish he could see 'em now; wouldn't he just long to box my ears—there, that's my first secret."

"But who is the man, Elsie?" enquired Miss Fuller, really disturbed by this first confidence; for the girl was her room-mate, and had been placed particularly under her care.

"Oh, that's my second secret—I'll tell you that when you're Grant's wife. You haven't told me about your own adorer yet."

"How could I? One does not talk of lovers till they come."

"Oh Bessie Fuller; what a fraud you are! Just as if he hadn't been under this very window again and again: just as if the flowers that get into our room, no one can guess how, did not come from him. Why, half the girls in school have seen him prowling round here like a great, handsome, splendid tiger!"

"What are you talking of, Elsie?"

"No matter; I shan't tell Grant, he must think himself first and foremost—what a lovely sister-in-law you will make."

"Elsie, my dear girl——"

"Don't interrupt me—don't say you wouldn't have him: that you like the other fellow better, and all that. I tell you Grant is a prince, and you shall be his princess. He's awful rich, too; our horrid old uncle left him everything. I haven't got the value of a hair bracelet all my own—that's another secret. The girls all think we share and share alike, and I want them to keep up the idea; but you are different. Don't you see it would be horrid hard for me if my brother should marry some close, stingy thing, that might even grudge me a home at Piney Bend; but with you—oh Bessie! Promise me that you will marry him."

Here Elsie flung down the stem of her grapes, and reaching out her arms, threw them lovingly around Elizabeth's neck.

"Promise me, promise me!"

"You foolish darling! Lie down and be quiet, or I shall think you light-headed again."

"But you shall, I declare you shall!—Hush! there is some one at the door. Come in!"

A servant opened the door and informed the young ladies that Mr. Mellen was in the parlor.

"Tell him to come up," said Elsie.

The servant went out, and Elsie sat up among her pillows, twisting that splendid mass of hair around her head. As she stooped forward, her eyes fell on the litter of broken flowers, and she called out eagerly,

"Oh Bessie, do sweep them up; throw them out of the window, under the bed, anywhere, so that he does not know about them. There would be no end to his questions, if he saw so much as a broken rose bud."

Elizabeth swept up the scattered flowers with her hands and cast them through the open window, scarcely heeding what the girl said about them, in the agitation of the moment. As she turned from the open sash, Grantley Mellen came into the room. He was indeed a grand and noble looking man, with dignity in his manner, and character in his face; evidently possessed of strong but subdued passions, and a power of concentration that might engender prejudices difficult to overcome. That he was upright and honorable, you saw at a glance. When he sat down by that fair young creature, and took her hand in his, the tenderness in his voice and eyes thrilled Elizabeth to the heart. Elsie it simply gratified.

"Why Bessie," she said, with threatening mischief in her eyes, "you haven't spoken to Grant yet."

"Because he was occupied with you," answered Elizabeth with grave dignity, that kept down the rebellious spirit in Elsie's eyes. "Now I will shake hands with Mr. Mellen and go down to my class."

With a gentle, but not altogether unembarrassed greeting, the young lady went out of the room, leaving the brother and sister together.

Two days after this scene in Elsie's chamber, Elizabeth Fuller stood in one of the parlors of the establishment with her hand locked in that of Grantley Mellen; startled, trembling, almost terrified by the great happiness that had fallen upon her. He had asked her tenderly, earnestly, and with a thrill of passion in his voice, to become his wife.

The girl had not answered him: she literally could not speak; her large gray eyes were lifted to his, wild with astonishment one moment, soft with exquisite love light the next.

"Will you not speak to me?"

She attempted to answer him, but smiles rather than words parted her lips; and tears, soft as dew, flooded the joy in her eyes. What did the man want of words after that?

They sat down together on the nearest couch, and scarcely knowing how, she found her heart so close to his, that the two seemed beating together in a wild, sweet tumult. The glow of his first kiss was on her lips; he was telling her in earnest, broken words, how fondly, how dearly he loved her. Nobly would she feel herself mated when she became the mistress of his home.

There was something besides smiles on those beautiful lips now. The heart has its own language, and in that she had answered him.

"Do I love you?" she said; "who could help it? Is there a woman on earth who could refuse such happiness? I forget myself, forget everything, even the poor pride that might have struggled a little against the disparity between us which seems lost to me now. I did not think it would be so sweet to accept everything and give nothing."

"You certainly love me and no other living man!" he said in answer to her sweet trustfulness. "Tell me that in words! tell me in looks! Make me sure of it."

"Love you! Indeed, indeed I do. Never in my life have I given a thought of such feelings to any man. If you can find happiness in owning every pulse of a human soul, it is yours."

"I believe it and accept the happiness; now my wife—for in a few weeks you must be that—let us go up to Elsie. She must be made happy also, for the dear child loves you scarcely less than I do."

A thought of something like shame shot through the joy of the moment, with Elizabeth. Had Elsie suggested this?

"Will she be pleased? Will she be surprised?"

"I hope so, I think so!" was Mellen's frank answer; "for hereafter, my sweet wife must be a guardian angel to the dear child, for she has been, till now, the dearest creature to me on earth."

"I, too, have loved her better than anything," said Elizabeth.

"Have I not seen that? Yes, I am sure we shall make Elsie perfectly happy. She has dreaded the loneliness of my home. Now it will be bright as heaven for her and for me."