bought
it, three years before.

It was a bright, frosty day, and the little gentleman stepped briskly
along the road towards the house of the two sisters. He felt as
light-hearted as any youth who goes a-wooing with a reasonable certainty
of a favorable answer from his beloved. He even sang a little to himself,
in a thin, sweet voice, keeping time with his stick, like a drum-major,
and dwelling faithfully on all the prolonged notes.

"Believe me," sang Mr. Denner,--

"'Believe me, if all those endearing young charms
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day'"--

Mr. Denner's rendering of charms was very elaborate. But while he was
still lingering on the last word, disappointment overtook him.

Coming arm in arm down the road were two small figures. Mr. Denner's
sight was not what it once was; he fumbled in the breast of his
bottle-green overcoat for his glasses, as a suspicion of the truth
dawned upon him.

His song died upon his lips, and he turned irresolutely, as though to
fly, but it was too late; he had recognized at the same moment Miss
Deborah and Miss Ruth Woodhouse. By no possibility could he say which he
had seen first.

He advanced to meet them, but the spring had gone from his tread and
the light from his eye; he was thrown back upon his perplexities. The
sisters, still arm in arm, made a demure little bow, and stopped to say
"Good-morning," but Mr. Denner was evidently depressed and absent-minded.

"I wonder what's the matter with William Denner, sister?" Miss Ruth said,
when they were out of hearing.

"Perhaps he's troubled about his housekeeping," answered Miss Deborah.
"I should think he might be, I must say. That Mary of his does keep him
looking so! And I have no doubt she is wasteful; a woman who is
economical with her needle and thread is pretty apt not to be saving in
other things."

"What a pity he hasn't a wife!" commented Miss Ruth. "Adele Dale says
he's never been in love. She says that that affair with Gertrude Drayton
was a sort of inoculation, and he's been perfectly healthy ever since."

"Very coarse in dear Adele to speak in that way," said Miss Deborah
sharply. "I suppose he never has gotten over Gertrude's loss. Yet, if his
sister-in-law had to die, it is a pity it wasn't a little sooner. He was
too old when she died to think of marriage."

"But, dear Deborah, he is not quite too old even yet, if he found a
person of proper age. Not too young, and, of course, not too old."

M