consolation for herself. "But yet--"

"Well, Iris," said her grandfather, "he wanted to learn heraldry, and
you have taught him."

"For the last three months"--the girl blushed as if she was confessing
her sins--"for the last three months there has not been a single word
in his letters about heraldry. He tells me that he writes because he
is idle, or because he wants to talk, or because he is alone in his
studio, or because he wants his unknown friend's advice. I am his
unknown friend, and I have been giving him advice."

"And very good advice, too," said her grandfather benevolently. "Who
is so wise as my Iris?"

"I have answered all his letters, and never once told him that I am
only a girl."

"I am glad you did not tell him, Iris," said her grandfather; but he
did not say why he was glad. "And why can't he go on writing his
letters without making any fuss?"

"Because he says he must make the acquaintance of the man--the man, he
says--with whom he has been in correspondence so long. This is what he
says."

She opened a letter which lay upon a table covered with papers, but
her grandfather stopped her.

"Well, my dear, I do not want to know what he says. He wishes to make