to catch Ralph Haverley, no matter
how they treat me?"

"Yes," said Miss Panney, leaning back in her chair, "that is exactly what
I mean. There is no use of our mincing matters, and as I hold that it is
the duty of every young woman to get herself well married, I think it is
your duty to marry Mr. Haverley if you can. You will never meet a man
better suited to you, and who can use your money with as much advantage
to yourself. I do not mean that you should go and make love to him, or
anything of that sort. I simply mean that you should allow him to expose
himself to your influences."

"I shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Dora, her face in a flush; "if he
wants that sort of exposure, let him come here. I don't know whether I
want him to come or not. I am too young to be thinking of marrying
anybody, and though I don't want to be disrespectful to you, Miss Panney,
I will say that I am getting dreadfully tired of your continual harping
about Ralph Haverley, and trying to make me push myself in front of him
so that his lordship may look at me. If he had been at Barport, or there
had been any chance of his coming there, I should have suspected that you
went there for the express purpose of keeping us up to the work of
becoming attached to each other. And I say plainly that I shall have no
more to do with exerting influence on him, through his sister or in any
other way. There are thousands of other men just as good as he is, and
if I have not met any of them yet, I have no doubt I shall do so."

"Dora," said Miss Panney, speaking very gently, "you are wrong when you
say that there was no chance of Ralph's coming to Barport. If some things
had not gone wrong, I have reason to believe he would have been there
before you left, and I am quite sure that if you had stayed there until
now, you would have been walking on the sands with him at this minute."

Dora looked at her in surprise, and the flush on her face subsided a
little.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "You do not think he would have gone there
on my account?"

"Yes, I do," said Miss Panney. "That is exactly what I mean, and now, my
dear Dora, do not let--"

At this moment Mrs. Bannister walked into the room, and was very glad
to see Miss Panney, and to know that she had returned in safety from
the seashore.

When Dora went up to her room, after the visitor had gone, she shut the
door and sat down to think.

"After all," she said to herself, "I do not beli