nion."

"Take the Communion indeed! She wants to be left there alone with
Margaret, so that she'll have a chance to flirt with every man in town.
I thought you had more sense, David."

I pulled my soft felt hat further over my diminished head.

"Did she get any letters?"

"One or two."

"Wretch! I told her to come out here with you to-night for certain."

Monday morning, mother, who had been spending the summer with my married
sister in Lake City, came out to stay for a week with us at Interlaken.

She could hardly wait till the youngsters were out of hearing to pour
her story into my ears. I had to take back to town the train by which
she had come out, but she made the most of her time.

"There's been great doin's in yer hoose in yer absence. Marg'et 's been
tellin' yer sister's servant a' aboot Mary's luv affairs. Mary tell't
her 'at Eesabelle bade her write Willum Axworthy an' spier his
intentions; that if she didna, Mrs. Davvit said she'd d'it hersel'. An'
a' the time she's correspondin' wi' a yunger ane, an Axworthy tae, 'at
she tells Marg'et she likes a hape better. Yer sister's sair affronted
to think o' the w'y the fem'ly name's bein' cairted thro' the mire."

Belle came out on the veranda, her broad hat in her hand, ready to walk
down to the train with me.

"So Axworthy didn't propose at the Fair?" said I, when we were out of
earshot of the cottage.

"No; and I think it's a crying shame, too, after the way he appropriated
the girl all last winter, and in Chicago too."

"A great relief to you! Well, I guess the whole town knows by this time
that you made Mary write and ask his intentions."

"This is too much! Has your mother----"

"Mary's been making a _confidante_ of Margaret, that's all. That
inestimable domestic is so much one of ourselves, it was hard for the
unsophisticated mind to know exactly where to draw the line."

"I hope she has drawn the line at showing Margaret his reply. I haven't
seen that myself."

"What can you expect it to be? If he had wanted to marry the girl there
was nothing to prevent him asking her, and if he did not, no letter of
yours would make him want to."

"She wrote it herself, and all she said was that she would like to know
definitely how she stood with him. I did nothing but correct the
spelling."

"Better if you had written in your own name, and without her knowledge.
No daughter of the house would ever have been put in such a position. So
far as I can j