Axworthy and come with us."

After waiting two hours and a half for standing room on a suburban
train, we reached the hotel at an early hour on July the 5th, dusty,
smoke-stained, and powder-scented, like veterans from a field of battle.

That was not by any means the last of Mr. Tom Axworthy. During the
remainder of our stay in Chicago it was he quite as frequently as his
more mature and eligible cousin who exchanged a lingering farewell with
Mary at the ladies' entrance to our hotel, and a great fear arose in the
heart of Belle that the young woman was fooling away her time with this
impecunious boy, instead of making the most of her opportunities to come
to a satisfactory understanding with his cousin. Every morning did she
gaze pathetically into my face, saying:

"I do hope Axworthy will propose to-day!" and once she added:

"I cannot face another winter in the same house with that girl and your
mother. Grandma has taken it into her head that Mary is my pet lamb, the
idol of my heart, for whom she, and you too, have been set aside. She
doesn't see that it worries me half to death to have Mary tagging round
after me the whole time, and overrunning the house with her beaux.
Neither of our own girls is old enough yet, thank goodness, to consider
herself my companion and equal, to wear my gloves, my boots, my best
hairpins, and to use my favorite perfume; to come and plant herself down
beside me whenever I'm talking confidentially to anyone, to be
determined to have her finger into every pie, to know what I'm reading
or thinking about. She'll insist on knowing my dreams next!"

"Perhaps you mesmerize her."

"If I did, I'd make her keep away from me! I could stand it all better
if I thought she really cared a straw for me, but I have the feeling
that she regards me merely as a basis for supplies."

"We can only trust, then, that the basis may be speedily transferred to
Axworthy!"

On our return from the World's Fair, the family stopped off at
Interlaken, but I had to go on into town to the _Echo_ office. To my
surprise, Mary joined me at my solitary dinner at the "House of the
Seven Gables," where Margaret, as usual, was in charge, and she remained
there for the rest of the week.

"Where's Mary?" was Belle's greeting, when I joined her on Saturday.

"She's in town."

"Why didn't you bring her out with you?"

"Didn't know you wanted her. She said she'd like to stay in Lake City
over Sunday, to take the Commu