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If the epistle, soaking slowly there in the wet, had been coe, she would have scorned to intercept it; would have

deposited it safely and punctually in the post-office As it was, if

she left it alone, Frederic would never get it, and Mrs Sutton

remain unconscious of its fate--unless soibility and dissolution; unless

Mabel should espy it on their return-walk, or, co back, the next

ht of the snowy leaflet of

peace in its snuggery under the sedge

A startled partridge flew over Rosa's head froround, and in the belief that he was the harbinger of the approach

she dreaded, she dislodged the envelope from its covert, with a

quick touch of her little wand, and it floated down the strea lazily wound in the

eddies, catching, now against a jutting stone, now entangled by a

blade of grass--Rosa's heart in her throat as she watched it, lest