hem have
contrived to make a perfect little slave of you. I am sure I don't know
who has any influence over you. I used to think you regarded your
mother's wishes a trifle, but I find I am mistaken."

"Oh, mother!" Flossy said, and this time the tears began to fall, "why
_will_ you talk so? I am sure I try to please you in every way that I
can. I did not know that you cared to have me go to parties, unless I
wanted to go."

Either the tears or something else made her brother indignant. "What a
scene about nothing," he said, irritably. "Why can't you let Flossy go
to parties or not, as she pleases? Parties are not such delightful
institutions that she need be expected to be in love with them. I should
be delighted if I never had to appear at another. Why not let people
have their fun in this world where they choose to find it? If Flossy has
lately discovered that hers can only be found in prayer-meeting, I am
sure it is a harmless enough diversion while the fit lasts."

Mrs. Shipley laughed. Her son could nearly always put her into good
humor. Besides, she didn't like to see tears on her baby's face; that
was her pet name for Flossy.

"Oh, I don't know that it makes any serious difference," she said; "not
enough to spoil your eyes over, Flossy. I don't want you to go out with
us unless you want to; only it is rather embarrassing to be constantly
arranging regrets for you. Besides, I don't see what it is all coming
to. You will be a moping, forsaken creature; old before your time, if
this continues."

As for Mr. Shipley, he maintained a haughty silence, neither expressing
an opinion on that subject nor on any other, which would involve him in
a conversation with Flossy. She knew that he was more seriously
displeased with her than were any of the others; not so much about the
parties as about other and graver matters.

Col. Baker was the son of Mr. Shipley's old friend. For this reason, and
for several others, Mr. Shipley was very fond of him. It had long been
in accordance with his plans, that Flossy should become, at some future
time, Mrs. Col. Baker, and that the estates of the two families should
be thus united.

While he was not at all the sort of man who would have interfered to
push such an arrangement against the preferences of the parties
concerned, he had looked on with great and increasing satisfaction,
while the plans of the young people evidently tended strongly in that
direction.

That his daughter