r silent and
undemonstrative, why, she'll be all the better for you: you've got
demonstration enough for twenty. And I think the family are well enough.
Mrs. Pasmer is thoroughly harmless; and Mr. Pasmer is a most dignified
personage; his eyebrows alone are worth the price of admission." Dan
could not help smiling. "All that there is about it is, you mustn't
expect to drive people into raptures about them, and expect them to go
grovelling round on their knees because you do."

"Oh, I know I'm an infernal idiot," said Dan, yielding to the mingled
sarcasm and flattery. "It's because I'm so anxious; and you all seem so
confoundedly provisional about it. Eunice, what do you suppose father
really thinks?"

Eunice seemed tempted to a relapse into her teasing, but she did not
yield. "Oh, father's all right--from your point of view. He's been
ridiculous from the first; perhaps that's the reason he doesn't feel
obliged to expatiate and expand a great deal at present."

"Do you think so?" cried Dan, instantly adopting her as an ally.

"Well, if I sad so, oughtn't it to be enough?"

"It depends upon what else you say. Look here, now, Eunice!" Dan said,
with a laughing mixture of fun and earnest, "what are you going to say
to mother? It's no use, being disagreeable, is it? Of course, I don't
contend for ideal perfection anywhere, and I don't expect it. But there
isn't anything experimental about this thing, and don't you think we had
better all make the best of it?"

"That sounds very impartial."

"It is impartial. I'm a purely disinterested spectator."

"Oh, quite."

"And don't you suppose I understand Mr. and Mrs. Pasmer quite as well
as you do? All I say is that Alice is simply the noblest girl that ever
breathed, and--"

"Now you're talking sense, Dan!"

"Well, what are you going to say when you get home, Eunice? Come!"

"That we had better make the best of it."

"And what else?"

"That you're hopelessly infatuated; and that she will twist you round
her finger."

"Well?"

"But that you've had your own way so much, it will do you good to have
somebody else's a while."

"I guess you're pretty solid," said Dan, after thinking it over for a
moment. "I don't believe you're going to make it hard for me, and I know
you can make it just what you please. But I want you to be frank with
mother. Of course I wish you felt about the whole affair just as I do,
but if you're right on the main question, I don't care for