to be consulted before any one's."

She yawned and made a face at Burton.

"Very well, father," she replied meekly, "only I might just as well not
be engaged at all."

"Just as well!" the professor snapped. "Such rubbish!"

Edith swung herself upright in the hammock, arranged her skirts, and
faced her father indignantly.

"How horrid of you!" she exclaimed. "You know that I only got engaged
to please you, because you thought that Mr. Bomford would take more
interest in publishing your books. If I can't ever have him here, I
shall break it off. He expects to be asked--I am quite sure he does."

The professor frowned impatiently.

"You are a most unreasonable child," he declared. "Mr. Bomford may
probably pay us a passing visit at any time, and you must be content
with that."

Edith sighed. She contemplated the tips of her shoes for some moments.

"I do seem to be in trouble to-day," she remarked,--"first with Mr.
Burton and then with you."

The professor turned unsympathetically away.

"You know perfectly well how to keep out of it," he said, making his way
toward the house.

"Between you both," Edith continued, "I really am having rather a hard
time. This is the last straw of all. I am deprived of my young man
now, just to please you."

"He isn't a young man," Burton contradicted.

Edith clasped her hands behind her head and looked fixedly up at the
blue sky.

"Never mind his age," she murmured. "He is really very nice."

"I've seen his photograph in the drawing-room," Burton reminded her.

Edith frowned.

"He is really much better looking than that," she said with emphasis.

"It is perhaps as well," Burton retorted, "especially if he is in the
habit of going about unattended."

Edith ignored his last speech altogether. "Mr. Bomford is also," she
went on, "extremely pleasant and remarkably well-read. His manners are
charming."

"I am sorry you are missing him so much," Burton said.

"A girl," Edith declared, with her head in the air, "naturally misses
the small attentions to which she is accustomed from her fiance."

"If there is anything an unworthy substitute can do," Burton began,--

"Nice girls do not accept substitutes for their fiances," Edith
interrupted, ruthlessly. "I am a very nice girl indeed. I think that
you are very lazy this afternoon. You would be better employed at work
than in talking nonsense."

Burton sighed.

"I tried to work this morning," he declared. "I gave up s