Passing the door of Felix's room, on her way to her own apartment, to boy called to her: "Miss Earl, are you very tired?"
"Oh, no. Do you want anything?"
"My head aches and I can't go to sleep. Please read to me a little while."
He raised himself on his elbow, and looked up fondly at her.
"Ah! how very pretty you are to-night! Kiss me, won't you?"
She stooped and kissed the poor parched lips, and as she opened a volume of the Waverly Novels, he said:
"Did you see Miss Morton?"
"Yes; she was on horseback, and we passed her twice."
"Glad of it! She does not like you. I guess she finds it as hard to get to sleep to-night as I do."
Edna commenced reading, and it was nearly an hour before Felix's eyes closed, and his fingers relaxed their grasp on hers. Softly she put the book back on the shelf, extinguished the light, and stole upstairs to her desk. That night, as Sir Roger tossed restlessly on his pillow, thinking of her, recalling all that she had said during the drive, he would not have been either comforted or flattered by a knowledge of the fact that she was so entirely engrossed by her MS. that she had no thought of him or his impending departure.