ready to encourage it; but when I begin to utter a little sense, you all
want to silence me, or else run out of the room! Yesterday I read about
a newspaper somewhere, called the 'Daily Evening Voice'; I wish you
would allow me a daily morning voice."

"Do not interfere, Kate," said Hal. "Aunt Jane and I only wish to
understand each other."

"I am sure we don't," said Aunt Jane; "I have no desire to understand
you, and you never will understand me till you comprehend Philip."

"Let us agree on one thing," Harry said. "Surely, aunt, you know how he
loves Hope?"

Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the equator, and said, gently, "I
fear I do."

"Fear?"

"Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves
her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat,
and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry
with any degree of grace, but he unfortunately does."

"Unfortunately?" remonstrated Hal, as far as ever from being satisfied.
"This is really too bad. You never will do him any justice."

"Ah?" said Aunt Jane, chilling again, "I thought I did. I observe he is
very much afraid of me, and there seems to be no other reason."

"The real trouble is," said Harry, after a pause, "that you doubt his
constancy."

"What do you call constancy?" said she. "Kissing a woman's picture ten
years after a man has broken her heart? Philip Malbone has that kind of
constancy, and so had his father before him."

This was too much for Harry, who was making for the door in indignation,
when little Ruth came in with Aunt Jane's luncheon, and that lady was
soon absorbed in the hopeless task of keeping her handmaiden's pretty
blue and white gingham sleeve out of the butter-plate.

V. A MULTIVALVE HEART.

PHILIP MALBONE had that perfectly sunny temperament which is peculiarly
captivating among Americans, because it is so rare. He liked everybody
and everybody liked him; he had a thousand ways of affording pleasure,
and he received it in the giving. He had a personal beauty, which,
strange to say, was recognized by both sexes,--for handsome men must
often consent to be mildly hated by their own. He had travelled much,
and had mingled in very varied society; he had a moderate fortune, no
vices, no ambition, and no capacity of ennui.

He was fastidious and over-critical, it might be, in his theories, but
in practice he was easily suited and never vexed.

He liked tra