uncivil. 'I didn't mean--I've plenty of time. 'Tis only to my home,
and they have had one by the early post.'

He smiled, saying, 'You are a good correspondent.'

'Oh! I must write. Annette and I were never apart before.'

'Your sister?'

'Yes, only a year older. We always did everything together.'

He ventured to look up, and saw a bright dew on a soft, shady pair of
dark eyes, a sweet quivering smile on a very pretty mouth, and a glow
of pure bright deep pink on a most delicately fair skin, contrasted
with braids of dark brown hair. She was rather above the ordinary
height, slender, and graceful, and the childish beauty of the form or
face and features surprised him; but to his mind the chief grace was
the shy, sweet tenderness, happy and bright, but tremulous with the
recent pain of the parting from home. With a kindly impulse, he said,
'You must tell me your name, Arthur has not mentioned it.'

'Violet;' and as he did not appear at once to catch its unusual sound,
she repeated, 'Violet Helen; we most of us have strange names.'

'Violet Helen,' he repeated, with an intonation as if struck, not
unpleasingly, by the second name. 'Well, that is the case in our
family. My sister has an uncommon name.'

'Theodora,' said Violet, pausing, as if too timid to inquire further.