er incomprehensible words.

"Miss Clara has the misfortune to be without a mother, or an aunt, or
any lady relative----"

"Oh, yes, I know it, my dear madam; but then I am sure you
conscientiously try to fill the place of a matronly friend and adviser
to my daughter," said the doctor, striving after light.

"Yes, sir, and it is in view of my duties in this relation that I say--I
and Traverse ought to go away."

"You and Traverse go away! My good little woman, you ought to be more
cautious how you shock a man at my time of life--fifty is a very
apoplectic age to a full-blooded man, Mrs. Rocke! But now that I have
got over the shock, tell me why you fancy that you and Traverse ought to
go away?"

"Sir, my son is a well-meaning boy----"

"A high-spirited, noble-hearted lad!" put in the doctor. "I have never
seen a better!"

"But granting all that to be what I hope and believe it is--true, still,
Traverse Rocke is not a proper or desirable daily associate for Miss
Day."

"Why?" curtly inquired the doctor.

"If Miss Clara's mother were living, sir, she would probably tell you
that young ladies should never associate with any except their equals of
the opposite sex," said Marah Rocke.

"Clara's dear mother, were she on earth, would understand and sympathize
with me, and esteem your Traverse as I do, Mrs. Rocke," said the doctor,
with moist eyes and a tremulous voice.

"But oh, sir, exceeding kind as you are to Traverse, I dare not, in
duty, look on and see things going the way in which they are, and not
speak and ask your consent to withdraw Traverse!"

"My good little friend," said the doctor, rising and looking kindly and
benignantly upon Marah, "My good little woman 'sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof!' Suppose you and I trust a little in Divine
Providence, and mind our own business?"

"But, sir, it seems to me a part of our business to watch over the young
and inexperienced, that they fall into no snare."

"And also to treat them with 'a little wholesome neglect' that our
over-officiousness may plunge them into none!"

"I wish you would comprehend me, sir!"

"I do, and applaud your motives; but give yourself no further trouble!
Leave the young people to their own honest hearts and to Providence.
Clara, with all her softness, is a sensible girl, and as for Traverse,
if he is one to break his heart from an unhappy attachment, I have been
mistaken in the lad, that is all!" said the doctor, heart