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Rh were, their looks matched them; not a ray of excitement or interest stirred Mr. Vasher's face, and she was no whit behind him, and yet methinks there must lurk some danger when two people who parted so wildly meet so coldly.

Somehow or other we are all matched; the stray men come out of their corners and fall in with the rest, and we go across the hall and into the dining-room, dim with wax lights, faint and subdued as a room devoted to the worship of the palate should be—or so gourmands tell us.

As yet, however, I am too young to love my dinner very heartily. As yet I "eat to live"; in the fulness of time I may perhaps "live to eat," but not now, not yet! I would rather be out in the garden than sitting here watching unhungry people tempted with good things, and I want to be able to think. It is all so wonderful, that Silvia and Paul Vasher should have met again. Will it be my lot to see the last act played out, and the lovers, after all their misunderstandings, made happy?

"It is the oddest thing, my meeting you here," says Paul, as we sit down. "Did you know you were coming when I wished you good-bye at Silverbridge?"

"I did not even know it for certain myself until eleven o'clock this morning," I say laughing, "When I saw you last I never thought any such dissipation was likely to befall me as paying a visit."

"You have left your colour behind," he says, looking at me, "with the poppies."

"Those poppies!" I say ruefully. "Oh! how good it was of you not to laugh!"

"I felt no inclination," he says; "the picture would not have been half so pretty without the flowers."

Here he betakes himself to his soup, for apparently he is hungry if I am not. Across the table, and plainly visible (for Milly's