"I have been sitting in the summer-house for an hour--reading!"
protested Mabel, wondrously resigned to the detention, after a
single, and not violent attempt at release. "If you had opened your
shutters you must have seen me. But I knew I was secure from
observation on that side of the house, at least until eight o'clock,
about which time the glories of the new day usually penetrate very
tightly-closed lids. As to dew--there isn't a drop upon grass or
blossom. And, by the same token, we shall have a storm within
twenty-four hours."

"Is that true? That is a meteorological presage I never heard of
until now."

"There is a moral in it, which I leave you to study out for
yourself, while I arrange the roses I--and not the
gardener--gathered."

In a whisper, she subjoined--"Let me go! Some one is coming!" and in
a second more was at the sideboard, hurrying the flowers into the
antique china bowl, destined to grace the centre of the breakfast
table.

"Good-morning, Miss Rosa. You are just in season to enjoy the
society of your sister," Frederic said, lightly, pointing to the
billows of mingled white and red, tossing under Mabel's fingers.

The new-comer approached the sideboard, leaned languidly upon her
elbow, and picked up a half-blown bud at random from the pile.

"They are scentless!" she complained.