The Time of Roses

by L. T. Meade

"I have not," said Kitty; "how interesting! I did not know that the number of the Argonaut had come. Florence told me she was writing in it." She took up the number and turned the pages.

"Oh!" she exclaimed once or twice.

Trevor stood near.

Bertha went and warmed herself by the fire.

"Oh!" said Kitty, "this is good." Then she began to laugh. "Only I wish she were not quite so bitter," she exclaimed, a moment later. "It is wonderfully clever. Read it; do read it, Mr. Trevor."

Trevor was all-impatient to do so. He took the magazine when Kitty handed it to him, and began to read rapidly. Soon he was absorbed in the tale. As he proceeded with it an angry flush deepened on his cheeks.

"What is the matter?" said Bertha, who, for reasons of her own, was watching this little scene with interest.

"I don't like the tone of this," he said. "Of course it is clever."

"It is very clever; and what does the tone matter?" said Bertha. "You are one of those painfully priggish people, Mr. Trevor, who will never get on in the world. Have you not yet discovered that being extra good does not pay?"

"I am not extra good; but being good pays in the long run," he answered. He darted an indignant glance at Bertha Keys and left the hall. Scarcely knowing why he did so, he strode into Mrs. Aylmer's boudoir. Bertha's desk, covered with papers, attracted his attention. There was a book lying near which she was reading. He picked it up, and was just turning away when a scrap of thin paper scribbled over in Bertha's well-known hand arrested his eye. Before he meant to do so he found that he had read a sentence on this paper. There was a sharpness and subtlety in the wording of the sentence which puzzled him for a moment, until he was suddenly startled by the resemblance to the style of the story in the Argonaut which he had just read. He scarcely connected the two yet, but his heart sank lower in his breast. He thought for a moment; then, opening his pocket-book, he placed the torn scrap of paper in it and went away to his room. It was nearly time to dress for dinner.