"There, Jane, do you hear that? Mabel knows, for she is in a position to
know."

"Of course, brother, we are all aware of that. If you had not that one
redeeming trait, I should have left you long ago, even if I had had to
get married. You admire Artemus Ward: he had a giant mind, you
recollect, but not always about him. So with your good heart at times.
But we are wandering from the point. Mabel, you were showing him how he
could go away for a week or two without neglecting his important duties
down town."

"Why yes, Robert. You have been here three weeks now, and I am sure you
have been at the store nearly every day. Indeed, when you were not at
home, or at the club, or somewhere about town, I doubt not you might be
found in Water Street a good part of the time."

"Yes," I said with an air of virtuous complacency, "I believe you are
right. I can't deny it, though it may help your side of the argument."

"Well then, you can surely be spared during a brief absence. And when
you return, you can continue to look in occasionally, as you say."

"Perhaps I could, though it is not well to be too positive. Where do you
think I ought to go?"

"Well, you are fond of fishing and hunting. You might go up and spend a
week with Mr. Hartman. You found good sport there, you said."

"O yes, there are trout enough, and deer not far off, he told me. But I
was there in May. And it is not very comfortable at Hodge's, if you
remember."

"But of course this time you would stay with Mr. Hartman. You refused
his invitation before, and it was hardly civil to such an old friend."

"He has a mere bachelor box, my dear, and I hardly like to thrust myself
on him."

"Why, Robert, I am surprised at you. After Mr. Hartman spent a fortnight
with us at Newport--and when he has written you twice, urging you to
come. Can't you see that the poor man is lonely, and really wants you?"

"Mabel, it would be all very well if it were like last May--only he and
I to be considered. But here is that blessed entanglement of his with
Clarice--quarrel, or love-making nipped in the bud, or whatever it
was--that complicates matters. After all the lectures I've had from you
two, I don't want to complicate them any more, nor to meddle in her
affairs, nor appear to. Suppose I go up there, and he wants news of her,
and anything goes wrong, or it simply doesn't come right as you expect;
I'd have your reproaches to bear ever after, and perhaps those of my own