n.

Mrs. Plausaby suggested to Albert that he should go and visit a cousin
thirty miles away. Who suggested it to Mrs. Plausaby we may not guess,
since we may not pry into the secrets of a family, or know anything of
the conferences which a husband may hold with his wife in regard to the
management of the younger members of the household. As an authentic
historian, I am bound to limit myself to the simple fact, and the fact is
that Mrs. Plausaby stated to Albert her opinion that it would be a nice
thing for him to go and see Cousin John's folks at Glenfleld. She made
the suggestion with characteristic maladroitness, at a moment when Albert
had been holding forth on his favorite hobby of the sinfulness of
land-speculation in general, and the peculiar wickedness of
misrepresentation and all the other arts pertaining to town-site
swindling. Perhaps Albert was too suspicious. He always saw the hand of
Plausaby in everything proposed by his mother. He bluntly refused to go.
He wanted to stay and vote. He would be of age in time. He wanted to stay
and vote against this carting of a county-seat around the country for
purposes of speculation. He became so much excited at what he regarded
as a scheme to get him out of the way, that he got up from the table and
went out into the air to cool off. He sat down on the unpainted piazza,
and took up Gerald Massey's poems, of which he never tired, and read
until the light failed.

And then came Isa Marlay out in the twilight and said she wanted to
speak to him, and he got her a chair and listened while she spoke in a
voice as full of harmony as her figure was full of gracefulness. I have
said that Isabel was not a beauty, and yet such was the influence of her
form, her rhythmical movement, and her sweet, rich voice, that Charlton
thought she was handsome, and when she sat down and talked to him, he
found himself vibrating, as a sensitive nature will, under the influence
of grace or beauty.

"Don't you think, Mr. Charlton, that you would better take your mother's
suggestion, and go to your cousin's? You'll excuse me for speaking about
what does not concern me?"

Charlton would have excused her for almost anything she might have said
in the way of advice or censure, for in spite of all his determination
that it should not be, her presence was very pleasant to him.

"Certainly I have no objection to receive advice, Miss Marlay; but have
you joined the other side?"

"I don't know wha