red on earth that I put my
questions to you."

"Well, I can answer them all in a bunch," said he; "she is exactly the
wife I want, and nobody in the world would suit me as well. And if there
is any one who does not think so--"

"Stop!" exclaimed Miss Panney; "your face is getting red. Never jump over
a wall when there is a bottomless ditch on the other side. You might miss
the ditch, but it is not likely. You are in love, and when people are
that way, the straight back of a saw is parallel to every line of its
teeth. Don't quarrel, and I will go on with my congratulations."

"Very queer ones they are so far, I am sure," replied Ralph, his face
still flushed a little.

"Oh yes," said Miss Panney, rising, "there are a lot of queer things in
this world, and I may be one of them. Now I will go and see your young
lady. I do not know her very well yet, and I must make her better
acquaintance."

"Miss Panney," said Ralph, quickly, "if you are going to stir her up with
questions such as you put to me, I beg you will not see her."

"Boy, boy," said the old lady, "don't bubble and boil. I have a great
regard for you, and care a great deal more for you than I do for her, and
it is only people that I care a great deal for that I stir up. Go back to
your grindstone, or whatever you were at work at, and do not worry your
mind about your little Cicely. It may be that I shall like her enough to
wish that I had made the match."

When Cicely accidentally met Ralph in the garden, a few hours later, she
said to him that she could not have imagined that Miss Panney was such a
dear old lady.

"Why, Ralph," said the girl, looking up at him with moistened eyes, "she
talked to me so sweetly and gave me such good advice that I actually
cried. And never before, dear Ralph, did good advice make me feel so
happy that I had to cry."

And at this point the two wood doves, who had become regular detectives,
actually pecked at each other in their despair of emulation.

Miss Panney's interview with Cicely had not been very long, because the
old lady was anxious to see La Fleur before the doctor got there, and she
went down into the kitchen, where, although she did not know it, the cook
was expecting her. La Fleur's soul was in a state of turbulent triumph,
but her expression was as soft as a dish of jelly.

Miss Panney sat down on the chair offered her, while the cook
remained standing.

"I came down to ask you," said the old lady, "if yo