oung lady she was so much older than Dan
that in his mother's absence she sometimes authorised herself to box his
ears, till she was finally overthrown in battle by the growing boy. She
still felt herself so much his tutelary genius that she could not let
the idea of his engagement awe her, or keep her from giving him a needed
lesson. Dan jumped to his feet, and passionately threw his napkin on his
chair.

"There, that will do, Eunice!" interposed the father. "Sit down, Dan,
and don't be an ass, if you are engaged. Do you expect to come up here
with a bombshell in your pocket, and explode it among us without causing
any commotion? We all desire your happiness, and we are glad if you
think you've found it, but we want to have time to realise it. We had
only adjusted our minds to the apparent fact that you hadn't found it
when you were here before." His father began very severely, but when he
ended with this recognition of what they had all blinked till then, they
laughed together.

"My pillow isn't dry yet, with the tears I shed for you, Dan," said
Minnie demurely.

"I shall have to countermand my mourning," said Eunice, "and wear louder
colours than ever. Unless," she added, "Miss Pasmer changes her mind
again."

This divination of the past gave them all a chance for another laugh,
and Dan's sisters began to reconcile themselves to the fact of
his engagement, if not to Miss Pasmer. In what was abstractly so
disagreeable there was the comfort that they could joke about his
happiness; they had not felt free to make light of his misery when he
was at home before. They began to ask all the questions they could think
of as to how and when, and they assimilated the fact more and more in
acquiring these particulars and making a mock of them and him.

"Of course you haven't got her photograph," suggested Eunice. "You know
we've never had the pleasure of meeting the young lady yet."

"Yes," Dan owned, blushing, "I have. She thought I might like to show it
to mother: But it isn't--"

"A very good one--they never are," said Minnie.

"And it was taken several years ago--they always are," said Eunice.

"And she doesn't photograph well, anyway."

"And this one was just after a long fit of sickness."

Dan drew it out of his pocket, after some fumbling for it, while he
tolerated their gibes.

Eunice put her nose to it. "I hope it's your cigarettes it smells of,"
she said.

"Yes; she doesn't use the weed," answered Dan.