"Mine?" exclaims Florence, laying down her brush, and looking, as she feels, astonished. As a rule, the gentle Dora does not seek for wisdom from her friends.
"Yes, dear, if you can spare me the time. Just five minutes will do, and then you can return to your charming sketch. Oh"—glancing at it—"how exactly like it is—so perfect; what a sunset, and what firs! One could imagine one's self in the Fairies' Glen by just looking at it."
"It is not the Fairies' Glen at all; it is that bit down by Gough's farm," says Florence coldly. Of late she has not been so blind to Dora's artificialness as she used to be.
"Ah, so it is!" agrees Dora airily, not in the least discomposed at her mistake. "And so like it too. You are a genius, dearest, you are really, and might make your fortune, only that you have one made already for you, fortunate girl!"
"You want my advice," suggests Florence quietly.
"Ah, true; and about something important too!" She throws into her whole air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and she grows pale and miserable accordingly.
"Let me hear it then," she urges, leaning back with a weary sigh.
"I have just received this letter," says Mrs. Talbot, taking from her pocket the letter Arthur had given her, and holding it out to Florence, "and I want to know how I shall answer it. Would you—would you honestly advise me, Flo, to go and meet him as he desires?"
"As who desires?"
"Ah, true; you do not know, of course! I am so selfishly full of myself and my own concerns, that I seem to think every one else must be full of them too. Forgive me, dearest, and read his sweet little letter, will you?"