ver marry Harry Liscom: capitulated entirely, and
gave her consent.

It was Grandma Cobb who brought us the news, coming in one morning
before we had our breakfast dishes washed.

"My daughter told Harriet last night that she had written to her
father and he had no objections, and that she would withdraw hers
on further consideration," said Grandma Cobb, with a curious,
unconscious imitation of Mrs. Jameson's calm state of manner. Then
she at once relapsed into her own. "My daughter says that she is
convinced that the young man is worthy, though he is not socially
quite what she might desire, and she does not feel it right to part
them if they have a true affection for each other," said Grandma
Cobb. Then she added, with a shake of her head and a gleam of
malicious truth in her blue eyes: "That is not the whole of it;
Robert Browning was the means of bringing it about."

"Robert Browning!" I repeated. I was bewildered, and Louisa stared at
me in a frightened way. She said afterward that she thought for a
minute that Grandma Cobb was out of her head.

But Grandma Cobb went on to explain. "Yes, my daughter seems to look
upon Robert Browning as if everything he said was written on tables
of stone," said she; "and last night she had a letter from Mrs.
Addison Sears, who feels just the same way. My daughter had written
her about Harriet's love affair, and this was in answer. Mrs. Sears
dwelt a good deal upon Mr. Browning's own happy marriage; and then
she quoted passages; and my daughter became convinced that Robert
Browning would have been in favor of the match,--and that settled it.
My daughter proves things by Browning almost the same way as people
do by Scripture, it seems to me sometimes. I am thankful that it has
turned out so," Grandma Cobb went on to say, "for I like the young
man myself; and as for Harriet, her mind is set on him, and she's
something like me: once get her mind set on anybody, that's the end
of it. My daughter has got the same trait, but it works the contrary
way: when she once gets her mind set against anybody, that's the end
of it unless Robert Browning steps in to turn her."

Louisa and I were heartily glad to hear of Mr. Browning's unconscious
intercession and its effect upon Mrs. Jameson, but we wondered what
Caroline Liscom would say.

"It will take more than passages of poetry to move her," said Louisa
when Grandma Cobb had gone.

All we could do was to wait for developments concernin