it and evident, too, that his assurance in regard to sentimental ambitions
had its attractions for her. They chaffed and sparred with each other and
under the flippant duel there flashed now and then the encounters of a real
one. Rose denied the possession of a heart, but Eddy's wary steel might
strike one day to a defenceless tenderness. She liked him, among many
others, very much. And she was, as she frequently declared, in love with
his mother. Jack never took Rose seriously; she remained for him a pretty,
trivial, malicious child; but to-day he was pleased by the evidences of her
devotion.

The little occasion, presided over by Valerie, bloomed for him. Everybody
tossed nosegays, everybody seemed happy; and it was Rose, sitting in a
low chair beside Mrs. Upton's sofa, who summed it up for him with the
exclamation, "I do so love being with you, Mrs. Upton! What is it you do
to make people so comfortable?"

"She doesn't do anything, people who do things make one uncomfortable,"
remarked Eddy, lounging in his chair and eating sandwiches. "She is, that's
all."

"What is she then," Rose queried, her eyes fixed with a fond effrontery on
Valerie's face. "She's like everything nice, I know; nice things to look
at, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch. Let us do her portrait, Eddy,
you know the analogy game. What flower does she remind you of? and what
food? Acacia; raspberries and cream. What musical instrument? What animal?
Help me, Jack."

"The musical instrument is a chime of silver bells," said Jack, while
Valerie looked from one to the other with amused interest. "And the animal
is, I think, a bird; a bright, soft-eyed bird, that flits and poises on