not do for you to marry
in that way. If your fortune was ready made to your hand, or if you
were established in your profession and at the top of it,--why, perhaps
you might be justified in pleasing yourself; but as it is, _don't_,
Tom! Be a good boy, and _don't!_"

"My dear, he will not," said the elder lady here. "Tom is wiser than
you give him credit for."

"I don't give any man credit for being wise, mamma, when a pretty face
is in question. And this girl has a pretty face; she is very pretty.
But she has no style; she' is as poor as a mouse; she knows nothing of
the world; and to crown all, Tom, she's one of the religious
sort.--Think of that! One of the real religious sort, you know. Think
how that would fit."

"What sort are you?" asked her brother.

"Not that sort, Tom, and you aren't either."

"How do you know she is?"

"Very easy," said the girl coolly. "She told me herself."

"She told you!"

"Yes."

"How?"

"O, simply enough. I was confessing that Sunday is such a fearfully
long day to me, and I did not know what to do with it; and she looked
at me as if I were a poor heathen--which I suppose she thought me--and
said, 'But there is always the Bible!' Fancy!--'always the Bible.' So I
knew in a moment where to place her."

"I don't think religion hurts a woman," said the young man.

"But you do not want her to have too much of it--" the mother remarked,
without looking up from her paper.

"I don't know what you mean by too much, mother. I'd as lief she found
Sunday short as long. By her own showing, Julia has the worst of it."

"Mamma! speak to him," urged the girl.

"No need, my dear, I think. Tom isn't a fool."

"Any man is, when he is in love, mamma."

Tom came and stood by the mantelpiece, confronting them. He was a
remarkably handsome young man; tall, well formed, very well dressed,
hair and moustaches carefully trimmed, and features of regular though
manly beauty, with an expression of genial kindness and courtesy.

"I am not in love," he said, half laughing. "But I will tell you,--I
never saw a nicer girl than Lois Lothrop. And I think all that you say
about her being poor, and all that, is just--bosh."

The newspapers went down.

"My dear boy, Julia is right. I should be very sorry to see you hurt
your career and injure your chances by choosing a girl who would give
you no sort of help. And you would regret it yourself, when it was too
late. You would be certain to regret it