it is not
considered the proper thing? or will you? or shall we leave it to
Julius?"

Mrs. Carling looked up into her sister's face, in which was a smile of
amused penetration, and looked down again in visible embarrassment.

The young woman laughed as she shook her finger at her.

"Oh, you transparent goose!" she cried. "What did he say?"

"What did who say?" was the evasive response.

"Julius," said Mary, putting her finger under her sister's chin and
raising her face. "Tell me now. You've been talking with him, and I
insist upon knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. So there!"

"Well," she admitted hesitatingly, "I said to him something like what I
have to you, that it seemed to me that Mr. Lenox came very often, and
that I did not believe it was all on his account, and that he" (won't
somebody please invent another pronoun?) "always stayed when you were
at home--"

"--and," broke in her sister, "that you were afraid my young affections
were being engaged, and that, after all, we didn't know much if anything
about the young man, or, perhaps, that he was forming a hopeless
attachment, and so on."

"No," said Mrs. Carling, "I didn't say that exactly. I--"

"Didn't you, really?" said Mary teasingly. "One ought to be explicit in
such cases, don't you think? Well, what did Julius say? Was he very much
concerned?" Mrs. Carling's face colored faintly under her sister's
raillery, and she gave a little embarrassed laugh.

"Come, now," said the girl relentlessly, "what did he say?"

"Well," answered Mrs. Carling, "I must admit that he said 'Pooh!' for
one thing, and that you were your own mistress, and, so far as he had
seen, you were very well qualified to manage your own affairs."

Her sister clapped her hands. "Such discrimination have I not seen," she
exclaimed, "no, not in Israel! What else did he say?" she demanded, with
a dramatic gesture. "Let us know the worst."

Mrs. Carling laughed a little. "I don't remember," she admitted, "that
he said anything more on the subject. He got into some perplexity about
whether the steam should be off or on, and after that question was
settled we went to bed." Mary laughed outright.

"So Julius doesn't think I need watching," she said.

"Mary," protested her sister in a hurt tone, "you don't think I ever
did or could watch you? I don't want to pry into your secrets, dear,"
and she looked up with tears in her eyes. The girl dropped on her knee