girl now."

"I know, dear," he protested, "but that's absurdly young. Why--"

"Yes," she answered, "I was nearly twenty when I was engaged to you,
and Jennie's not engaged yet, nor probably even thinking seriously of
it."

"Don't you think," cried Barclay, as he limped down the diagonal of
the rug, "that you should do something? Isn't it a little unusual?
Why--"

"Well, John," smiled the wife, "I might do what mother did: turn the
young man over to father!" Barclay laughed, and she went on patiently:
"It's not at all unusual, John, even if they do--that is, if they
are--you know; but they aren't, and Jennie is too much in love with
her work at school to quit that. But after all it's the American way;
it was the way we did, dear, and the way our mothers and fathers did,
and unless you wish to change it--to Europeanize it, and pick--"

"Ah, nonsense, Jane--of course I don't want that! Only I thought some
way, if it's serious she ought to--Oh, don't you know she ought
to--"

Mrs. Barclay broke her smile with, "Of course she ought to, dear, and
so ought I and so ought mother when she married father and so ought my
grandmother when she married grandpa--but did we? Dear, don't you see
the child doesn't realize it? If it is anything, it is growing in her
heart, and I wouldn't smudge it for the world, by speaking to her
now--unless you don't like Neal; unless you think he's too--unless
you want a different boy. I mean some one of consequence?"

"Oh, no, it isn't that, Jane--it isn't that. Neal's all right; he's
clean and he is honest--I asked Bob Hendricks about him to-day, when
we passed the boy chasing news for the _Banner_, and Bob gives him a
fine name." Barclay threw himself into a chair and sighed. "I suppose
it's just that I feel Jeanette's kind of leaving us out of it--that
is all."

Jane went to him and patted his head gently, as she spoke: "That is
nature, dear--the fawn hiding in the woods; we must trust to Jennie's
good sense, and the good blood in Neal. My, but his sisters are proud
of him! Last week Lizzie was telling me Neal's wages had been
increased to ten dollars a week--and I don't suppose their father in
all of his life ever had that much of a steady income. The things the
family is planning to do with that ten dollars a week brought tears of
joy to my eyes. Neal's going to have his mother-in-law on his side,
anyway--just as you had yours. I know now how mother felt."

But John Barclay did not k