d Americans go to the
hotels on the Hill, but Pupp's is in the thick of it in the lower town;
and it's very gay, Mr. Kenby says; he's been there often. Mr. Burnamy is
to get our rooms."

"I don't suppose I can get papa to go," said Miss Triscoe, so
insincerely that Mrs. March was sure she had talked over the different
routes; to Carlsbad with Burnamy--probably on the way from Cuxhaven.
She looked up from digging the point of her umbrella in the ground. "You
didn't meet him here this morning?"

Mrs. March governed herself to a calm which she respected in asking,
"Has Mr. Burnamy been here?"

"He came on with Mr. and Mrs. Eltwin, when we did, and they all decided
to stop over a day. They left on the twelve-o'clock train to-day."

Mrs. March perceived that the girl had decided not to let the facts
betray themselves by chance, and she treated them as of no significance.

"No, we didn't see him," she said, carelessly.

The two men came walking slowly towards them, and Miss Triscoe
said, "We're going to Dresden this evening, but I hope we shall meet
somewhere, Mrs. March."

"Oh, people never lose sight of each other in Europe; they can't; it's
so little!"

"Agatha," said the girl's father, "Mr. March tells me that the museum
over there is worth seeing."

"Well," the girl assented, and she took a winning leave of the Marches,
and moved gracefully away with her father.

"I should have thought it was Agnes," said Mrs. March, following them
with her eyes before she turned upon her husband. "Did he tell you
Burnamy had been here? Well, he has! He has just gone on to Carlsbad.
He made, those poor old Eltwins stop over with him, so he could be with
her."

"Did she say that?"

"No, but of course he did."

"Then it's all settled?"

"No, it isn't settled. It's at the most interesting point."

"Well, don't read ahead. You always want to look at the last page."

"You were trying to look at the last page yourself," she retorted, and
she would have liked to punish him for his complex dishonesty toward the
affair; but upon the whole she kept her temper with him, and she made
him agree that Miss Triscoe's getting her father to Carlsbad was only a
question of time.

They parted heart's-friends with their ineffectual guide, who was
affectionately grateful for the few marks they gave him, at the hotel
door; and they were in just the mood to hear men singing in a farther
room when they went down to supper. The waiter, much