k you now
when I may come again. But if you need me, you'll----"

A sharp pull at the door-bell outside made them start asunder, and at a
sign from Penelope, who knew that the maids were abed by this time, he
opened it.

"Why, Irene!" shrieked the girl.

Irene entered with the hackman, who had driven her unheard to the door,
following with her small bags, and kissed her sister with resolute
composure. "That's all," she said to the hackman. "I gave my checks
to the expressman," she explained to Penelope.

Corey stood helpless. Irene turned upon him, and gave him her hand.
"How do you do, Mr. Corey?" she said, with a courage that sent a thrill
of admiring gratitude through him. "Where's mamma, Pen? Papa gone to
bed?"

Penelope faltered out some reply embodying the facts, and Irene ran up
the stairs to her mother's room. Mrs. Lapham started up in bed at her
apparition.

"Irene Lapham."

"Uncle William thought he ought to tell me the trouble papa was in; and
did you think I was going to stay off there junketing, while you were
going through all this at home, and Pen acting so silly, too? You ought
to have been ashamed to let me stay so long! I started just as soon as
I could pack. Did you get my despatch? I telegraphed from Springfield.
But it don't matter, now. Here I am. And I don't think I need have
hurried on Pen's account," she added, with an accent prophetic of the
sort of old maid she would become, if she happened not to marry.

"Did you see him?" asked her mother. "It's the first time he's been
here since she told him he mustn't come."

"I guess it isn't the last time, by the looks," said Irene, and before
she took off her bonnet she began to undo some of Penelope's mistaken
arrangements of the room.

At breakfast, where Corey and his mother met the next morning before
his father and sisters came down, he told her, with embarrassment which
told much more, that he wished now that she would go and call upon the
Laphams.

Mrs. Corey turned a little pale, but shut her lips tight and mourned in
silence whatever hopes she had lately permitted herself. She answered
with Roman fortitude: "Of course, if there's anything between you and
Miss Lapham, your family ought to recognise it."

"Yes," said Corey.

"You were reluctant to have me call at first, but now if the affair is
going on----"

"It is! I hope--yes, it is!"

"Then I ought to go and see her, with your sisters; and she ought to
come h