mother now, standing straight before her with large,
earnest eyes.

"Mother," with a strange solemnity in her tone, "are you going to let
Margaret marry Dr. Hoffman?"

"Law, child, how you startled me!" Her mother sewed faster than ever.
"Why, I don't know as I had much to do with it any way. And I suppose
they'd marry anyhow. When young people fall in love----"

"Fall in love." She had read that in some of the books. It must be
different from just loving.

"Don't be silly," said her mother, between sharpness and merriment.
"Everybody falls in love sooner or later and marries. Almost everybody.
And if I had not fallen in love with your father and married him, you
mightn't have had so good a one."

"Oh, mother, I'm so glad you did!" She flung her arms about her mother's
neck and kissed her so rapturously that the tears came to her mother's
eyes. Why, she wouldn't have missed the exquisite joy of having this
little girl for all the world!

"There, child, don't strangle me," was what she said, in an unsteady
voice.

"But Dr. Hoffman isn't like father----"

"No, dear. And Margaret isn't like me, now. They are young, and maybe
when they have been married a good many years they will be just as
happy, growing old together. And since Margaret loves him and he loves
her--why, we are all delighted with Dolly. She's just another
daughter."

"But we have a good many sons," said the little girl, without seeing the
humor of it.

"Yes, we didn't really need him, just yet. But he's Joe's dear friend
and a nice young man, and your father is satisfied. It's the way of the
world. Little girls can't understand it very well, but they always do
when they're grown up. There, go hang up your bonnet, and then you may
set the table."

Yes, it was a great mystery. Margaret seemed suddenly set apart, made
sacred in some way. Hanny's intensity of thought had no experience to
shape or restrain it. All the girls had liked Charles,--perhaps if there
had been several boys and spasms of jealousy between the girls, she
might have been roused to a more correct idea. But though they had made
him the father, a lover had been quite outside of their simple category.

Margaret came down presently. She had on her pretty brown merino trimmed
with bands of scarlet velvet, and at her throat a white bow just edged
with scarlet. Her front hair was curled in ringlets.

"Mother, can't we have supper quite soon, or can't I? The concert begins
at half-