enough for such intemperate gayety.

As for Miriam, she overflowed with delight. The ocean was grand, but
Cobhurst was Cobhurst. "There was nothing better about my trip than the
opportunity it gave me of coming back to my home. I never did that
before, you know, my children."

This she said loftily from her seat at the head of the table. Dinner was
late and lasted long, and Ralph had gone into the room on the lower
floor, in which he kept his cigars, and which he called his office, when
Miriam followed him. There was no unencumbered chair, and she seated
herself on the edge of the table.

"Ralph," said she, "I want to say something to you, now, while it is
fresh in my mind. I think we can sometimes understand our affairs better
when we go away from them and are not mixed up in them. I have been
thinking a great deal since I have been at Barport about our affairs
here, not only as they are but as they may be, and most likely will be,
and I have come to the conclusion that some of these days, Ralph, you
will want to be married."

"Do you mean me?" cried Ralph. "You amaze me!"

"Oh, you are only a man, and you need not be amazed," said his sister.
"This is the way I have been thinking of it: if you ever do want to get
married, I hope you will not marry Dora Bannister. I used sometimes to
think that that might be a good thing to do, though I changed my mind
very often about it, but I do not think so, now, at all. Dora is an
awfully nice girl in ever so many ways, but since I have been at Barport
with her, I am positive that I do not want you to marry her."

Ralph heaved a long sigh and put his hands in his pockets.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "this is very discouraging; if I do not
marry Dora, who is there that I can marry?"

"You goose," said his sister, "there is a girl here, under your very
nose, ever so much nicer and more suitable for you than Dora. If you
marry anybody, marry Cicely Drane. I have been thinking ever and ever so
much about her and about you, and I made up my mind to speak to you of
this as soon as I got home, so that you might have a chance to think
about it before you should see Dora. Don't you remember what you used to
tell me about the time when you were obliged to travel so much, and how,
when you had a seat to yourself in a car, and a crowd of people were
coming in, you used to make room for the first nice person you saw,
because you knew you would have to have somebody sitting alongsi