?"

"You may call it a whim, a fancy, a notion. I do not know that anything
will ever come of it. I could wish there might--but that is a very
cloudy and misty chateau en Espagne, and I do not much look at it. The
present thing is practical. Will you take the place, and do what you
can for these girls?"

"What ever put this thing in your head?"

"What matter, if it is a good thing?"

"I must know more about it. Who are these people?"

"Connections of Mrs. Wishart. Perfectly respectable."

"_What_ are they, then?"

"Country people. They belong, I suppose, to the farming population of a
New England village. That is very good material."

"Certainly--for some things. How do they live--by keeping boarders?"

"Nothing of the kind! They live, I suppose,--I don't know how they
live; and I do not care. They live as farmers, I suppose. But they are
poor."

"And so, without education?"

"Which I am asking you to supply."

"Phil, you are interested in one of these girls?"

"Didn't I tell you I was interested in both of them?" he said,
laughing. And he rose now, and stood half leaning against the door of
the little room, looking down at Mrs. Barclay; and she reviewed him. He
looked exactly like what he was; a refined and cultivated man of the
world, with a lively intelligence in full play, and every instinct and
habit of a gentleman. Mrs. Barclay looked at him with a very grave face.

"Philip, this is a very crazy scheme!" she said, after a minute or two
of mutual consideration.

"I cannot prove it anything else," he said lightly. "Time must do that."

"I do not think Time will do anything of the kind. What Time does
ordinarily, is to draw the veil off the follies our passions and
fancies have covered up."

"True; and there is another work Time some times does. He sometimes
draws forth a treasure from under the encumbering rubbish that hid it,
and lets it appear for the gold it is."

"Philip, you have never lost your heart to one of these girls?" said
Mrs. Barclay, with an expression of real and grave anxiety.

"Not exactly."

"But your words mean that."

"They are not intended to convey any such meaning. Why should they?"

"Because if they do not mean that, your plan is utterly wild and
extravagant. And if they do--"

"What then?"

"_Then_ it would be far more wild and extravagant. And deplorable."

"See there the inconsistency of you good people!" said Mr. Dillwyn,
still speaking lightly. "A little