e are a great many more than there used to be," Miss Fanny
observed, in her lifeless voice, as the lull fell after one of these
visitations. "Eugene is right about that; there seem to be at least
three or four times as many as there were last summer, and you never
hear the ragamuffins shouting 'Get a horse!' nowadays; but I think he
may be mistaken about their going on increasing after this. I don't
believe we'll see so many next summer as we do now."

"Why?" asked Isabel.

"Because I've begun to agree with George about their being more a fad
than anything else, and I think it must be the height of the fad just
now. You know how roller-skating came in--everybody in the world seemed
to be crowding to the rinks--and now only a few children use rollers for
getting to school. Besides, people won't permit the automobiles to be
used. Really, I think they'll make laws against them. You see how they
spoil the bicycling and the driving; people just seem to hate them!
They'll never stand it--never in the world! Of course I'd be sorry to
see such a thing happen to Eugene, but I shouldn't be really surprised
to see a law passed forbidding the sale of automobiles, just the way
there is with concealed weapons."

"Fanny!" exclaimed her sister-in-law. "You're not in earnest?"

"I am, though!"

Isabel's sweet-toned laugh came out of the dusk where she sat. "Then
you didn't mean it when you told Eugene you'd enjoyed the drive this
afternoon?"

"I didn't say it so very enthusiastically, did I?"

"Perhaps not, but he certainly thought he'd pleased you."

"I don't think I gave him any right to think he'd pleased me" Fanny said
slowly.

"Why not? Why shouldn't you, Fanny?"

Fanny did not reply at once, and when she did, her voice was almost
inaudible, but much more reproachful than plaintive. "I hardly think I'd
want any one to get the notion he'd pleased me just now. It hardly seems
time, yet--to me."

Isabel made no response, and for a time the only sound upon the dark
veranda was the creaking of the wicker rocking-chair in which Fanny
sat--a creaking which seemed to denote content and placidity on the
part of the chair's occupant, though at this juncture a series of human
shrieks could have been little more eloquent of emotional disturbance.
However, the creaking gave its hearer one great advantage: it could be
ignored.

"Have you given up smoking, George?" Isabel asked presently.

"No."

"I hoped perhaps you had, becau