"I think she is lovely; as good, too, as she is beautiful; and would make you a charming wife." He flushed hotly.

"She is very handsome, very fascinating and talented," he said; "but would never suit me.

Nor do I suppose I could win her if I wished." "Indeed! if you are so hard to please, I fear there will be nothing for you but old bachelorhood," laughed Elsie.

"I have picked her out for you, and I believe you could win her if you tried, Harold; but I shall not try to become a match-maker." "No, I must select for myself; I couldn't let even you choose for me." "Choose what ?" asked Mr.Dinsmore, stepping out upon the veranda, where Harold stood leaning against a vine-wreathed pillar, his blue eyes fixed with a sort of wistful, longing look upon Elsie's graceful figure and fair face, as she sat in a half-reclining posture on a low couch but a few feet from him.
"A wife," he answered, compelling himself to speak lightly.
"Don't let her do it," said Mr.Dinsmore, taking a seat by his daughter's side; "I've warned her more than once not to meddle with match-making." And he shook his head at her with mock gravity.
"I won't any more, papa; I'll leave him to his own devices, since he shows himself so ungrateful for my interest in his welfare," Elsie said, looking first at her father and then at Harold with a merry twinkle in her eye.
"I don't think I've asked how you like your new home and prospects, Harold," said Mr.Dinsmore, changing the subject.
"Very much, thank you; except that they take me so far from the rest of the family." A few months before this Harold had met with a piece of rare good fortune, looked at from a worldly point of view, in being adopted as his sole heir by a rich and childless Louisiana planter, a distant relative of Mrs.
Allison.
"Ah, that is an objection," returned Mr.Dinsmore; "but you will be forming new and closer ties, that will doubtless go far to compensate for the partial loss of the old.

I hope you are enjoying yourself here ?" "I am indeed, thank you." This answer was true, yet Harold felt himself flush as he spoke, for there was one serious drawback upon his felicity; he could seldom get a word alone with Elsie; she and her father were so inseparable that he scarcely saw the one without the other.