"

"No, my dear; you mustn't take it that way. I'm talking no more freely
than you have been. We consider you one of the family, so I'm speaking
to you just as I would to Philip."

Billy's face was fiery red, but he never flinched in his dogged
determination.

"I don't care who knows how much I think of Merry," he said defiantly.
"You've spoiled my visit! I'm not a bit ashamed--"

"Forgive me, Billy," she soothed him gently,--"of course you're not
ashamed. I wouldn't speak to you like this if you weren't one of my own
boys; but I do want you to realize that it is seldom that early fancies
are more than impersonal idealizations. I'm glad you and Merry like each
other, and I hope you will always be the best of friends; but, in
applying our idealization to the one who at the moment comes nearest to
the realization, a mistake is usually made because the one we are really
looking for hasn't yet crossed our horizon."

"Sometimes, perhaps," Billy conceded; "but there are exceptions."

Mrs. Thatcher smiled at his persistency. She liked the boy, and had
seized on this opportunity to spare him the greater disappointment which
she felt sure would come.

"Yes," she answered kindly; "there are exceptions. I know of one in my
own experience, but in this case it only made it more unfortunate. I
knew a boy once who applied the idealization formed during the
inflammable period to a girl who at that time thought she cared for him.
Then her horizon broadened and she found and married the man she really
loved; but the boy held on to his early ideal, becoming a recluse,
embittered against the world and incapable of seeing that unless the
ideal becomes a reality to both it can never safely amount to anything."

Thatcher looked at his wife questioningly, and Merry's eyes also
fastened themselves upon her mother's face. Marian's voice as much as
her words disclosed more than she intended. As she paused Philip,
supposing the conversation to be concluded, mentioned the name which was
in each one's mind except the boys'.

"By the way, Mother," he remarked, "Mr. Huntington wants me to meet a
friend of his named Hamlen, who, he says, used to be a friend of yours."

"Yes," she said, looking up at him quickly,--"yes; I, too, wish you to
meet Mr. Hamlen. He is in New York now. Perhaps you will see him before
you return. I want you to know him well."

As Thatcher assisted them in getting off to the theater, he managed to
draw Marian one si