must be moved. The girl seems a nice girl with no
nonsense about her, and won't mind sleeping up there. Or, why not
put Katie upstairs?"

"Indeed, I should not think of it. Katie is a dear good girl, and
I will not put anyone over her head."

"Nor I, dear. On the contrary, I was asking you to put her over
another person's head," said Mr. Brown, laughing at his own joke,
This unusual reluctance on the part of his wife to assist in
carrying out any hospitable plans of his began to strike him; so,
not being an adept at concealing his thoughts, or gaining his
point by any attack except a direct one, after driving on for a
minute in silence, he turned suddenly on his wife, and said,--

"Why, Lizzie, you seem not to want to ask the girl?"

"Well, John, I do not see the need of it at all."

"No, and you don't want to ask her?"

"If you must know, then, I do not."

"Don't you like her?"

"I do not know her well enough either to like or dislike."

"Then, why not ask her, and see what she is like? But the truth
is, Lizzie, you have taken a prejudice against her?"

"Well, John, I think she is a thoughtless girl, and extravagant;
not the sort of girl, in fact, that I should wish to be much with
us."

"Thoughtless and extravagant!" said Mr. Brown, looking grave;
"how you women can be so sharp on one another! Her dress seemed
to me simple and pretty, and her manners very lady-like and
pleasing."

"You seem to have quite forgotten about Tom's hat," said Mrs.
Brown.

"Tom's white hat--so I had," said Mr. Brown, and he relapsed into
a low laugh at the remembrance of the scene. "I call that _his_
extravagance, and not hers."

"It was a new hat, and a very expensive one, which he had bought
for the vacation, and it is quite spoilt."

"Well, my dear; really, if Tom will let girls shoot at his hats,
he must take the consequences. He must wear it with the holes, or
buy another."

"How can he afford another, John? you know how poor he is."

Mr. Brown drove on now for several minutes without speaking. He
knew perfectly well what his wife was coming to now, and, after
weighing in his mind the alternatives of accepting battle or
making sail and changing the subject altogether, said,--

"You know, my dear, he has brought it on himself. A headlong,
generous sort of youngster, like Tom, must be taught early that
he can't have his cake and eat his cake. If he likes to lend his
money, he must find out that he hasn't it to sp