sirable. A month ago she could have
observed, with idle and alien curiosity, the spectacle of his thumb
drawing nearer to another (feminine) thumb, on the page of the Watts and
Select Hymn book; now, at the morning service, she had wished nothing so
much as to put Mark's thumb back into his pocket where it belonged, and
slap the girl's thumb smartly and soundly as it deserved.

The ignorant cause of Patty's distress was a certain Annabel Franklin,
the daughter of a cousin of Mrs. Wilson's. Mark had stayed at the
Franklin house during his three weeks' visit in Boston, where he had
gone on business for his father. The young people had naturally seen
much of each other and Mark's inflammable fancy had been so kindled by
Annabel's doll-like charms that he had persuaded her to accompany him to
his home and get a taste of country life in Maine. Such is man, such is
human nature, and such is life, that Mark had no sooner got the whilom
object of his affections under his own roof than she began to pall.

Annabel was twenty-three, and to tell the truth she had palled before,
more than once. She was so amiable, so well-finished,--with her smooth
flaxen hair, her neat nose, her buttonhole of a mouth, and her trim
shape,--that she appealed to the opposite sex quite generally and
irresistibly as a worthy helpmate. The only trouble was that she began
to bore her suitors somewhat too early in the game, and they never
got far enough to propose marriage. Flaws in her apparent perfection
appeared from day to day and chilled the growth of the various young
loves that had budded so auspiciously. She always agreed with everybody
and everything in sight, even to the point of changing her mind on the
instant, if circumstances seemed to make it advisable. Her instinctive
point of view, when she went so far as to hold one, was somewhat cut and
dried; in a word, priggish. She kept a young man strictly on his good
behavior, that much could be said in her favor; the only criticism that
could be made on this estimable trait was that no bold youth was ever
tempted to overstep the bounds of discretion when in her presence. No
unruly words of love ever rose to his lips; his hand never stole out
involuntarily and imprudently to meet her small chilly one; the sight of
her waist never even suggested an encircling arm; and as a fellow never
desired to kiss her, she was never obliged to warn or rebuke or strike
him off her visiting list. Her father had an