the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a person towards whom she herself was conscious of timidity. This new experience was very agreeable to her - so agreeable that it almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek as she seated herself.

`I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before yesterday,' said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her lover's confusion - the advantage was usually on his side.

`This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,' said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy and stooping to play with Minny - only looking at Maggie furtively. `She said you had light hair and blue eyes.'

`Nay, it was you who said so,' remonstrated Lucy. `I only refrained from destroying your confidence in your own second sight.'

`I wish I could always err in the same way,' said Stephen, `and find reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions.'

`Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion,' said Maggie, `and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the circumstances.'

She flashed a slightly defiant look at him: it was clear to her that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied the addition - `and rather conceited.'

`An alarming amount of devil there,' was Stephen's first thought. The second, when she had bent over her work was, `I wish she would look at me again.' The next was, to answer:

`I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true. A man is occasionally grateful when he says "thank you." It's rather hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world declines a disagreeable invitation - don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?'

`No,' said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; `if we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners or everyday clothes hung up in a sacred place.'

`Then my compliment ought to be eloquent,' said Stephen, really not quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, `seeing that the words were so far beneath the occasion.'

`No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference,' said Maggie, flushing a little.

Lucy was rather alarmed - she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear too odd and clever to please that critical gentleman. `Why, dear Maggie,' she interposed, `you have always pretended that you are too fond of being admired, and now, I think, you are angry because some one ventures to admire you.'

`Not at all,' said Maggie, `I like too well to feel that I am admired, but compliments never make me feel that.'

`I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver,' said Stephen.

`Thank you; that will be a proof of respect.'

Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very trivial incidents. But she