or, believe me."

For the next quarter of an hour they chatted in the liveliest, most
inconsequential fashion, getting on excellent terms with each other and
arriving at a fair sense of appreciation of what lay ahead of them in
the shape of peril and adventure.

She was the most delightful person he had ever met, as well as being the
most beautiful. There was a sprightly, ever-growing air of self-reliance
about her that charmed and reassured him. She possessed the capacity for
divining the sane and the ridiculous with splendid discrimination.
Moreover, she could jest and be serious with an impartial intelligence
that gratified his vanity without in the least inspiring the suspicion
that she was merely clever. He became blissfully imbued with the idea
that she had surprised herself by the discovery that he was really quite
attractive. In fact, he was quite sincerely pleased with himself--for
which he may be pardoned if one stops to think how resourceful a woman
of tact may be if she is very, very pretty.

And, by way of further analogy, Brock was a thoroughly likable chap,
beside being handsome and a thoroughbred to the core. It's not betraying
a secret to affirm, cold-bloodedly, that Miss Fowler had not allied
herself with the enterprise until after she had pinned Roxbury down to
facts concerning Brock's antecedents. She was properly relieved to find
that he came of a fine old family and that he had led more than one
cotillion in New York.

He experienced a remarkable change of front in respect to Roxbury
Medcroft before the breakfast was over. It may have been due to the
spell of her eyes or to the call of her voice, but it remains an
unchallenged fact that he no longer thought of Medcroft as a stupid
bungler; instead, he had come to regard him as a good and irreproachable
Samaritan. All of which goes to prove that a divinity shapes our ends,
rough hew them how we may.

"I'm sure we shall get on famously," he said, as she signified her
desire to return to the compartment. "I've always longed for a nice,
agreeable sister-in-law."

"Her mission in life, up to a certain stage, is to make the man
appreciate the fact that he has, after all, been snapped up by a small
but deserving family," she said blithely. "It is also her duty to pour
oil on troubled waters and strew flowers along the connubial highway,
so long as her kind offices are not resented. By the way, Roxbury, I am
now about to preserve you from bitter rep