dn't it be the best thing in the world for the poor
child, and for all of us? I never saw anybody that I liked so much. But
it's too good to be true."

"He's a nice fellow, but I don't think he's any too good for Ellen."

"I'm not saying he is. The great thing is that he's good enough, and
gracious knows what will happen if she meets some other worthless
fellow, and gets befooled with him! Or if she doesn't take a fancy to
some one, and goes back to Tuskingum without seeing any one else she
likes, there is that awful wretch, and when she hears what Dick did to
him--she's just wrong-headed enough to take up with him again to make
amends to him. Oh, dear oh, dear! I know Lottie will let it out to her
yet!"

The judge began threateningly, "You tell Lottie from me--"

"What?" said the girl herself, who had seen her father and mother
talking together in a remote corner of the music-room and had stolen
light-footedly upon them just at this moment.

"Lottie, child," said her mother, undismayed at Lottie's arrival in her
larger anxiety, "I wish you would try and be agreeable to Mr. Breckon.
Now that he's going on with us to Holland, I don't want him to think
we're avoiding him."

"Why?"

"Oh, because."

"Because you want to get him for Ellen?"

"Don't be impudent," said her father. "You do as your mother bids you."

"Be agreeable to that old Breckon? I think I see myself! I'd sooner
read! I'm going to get a book now." She left them as abruptly as she had
come upon them, and ran across to the bookcase, where she remained two
stepping and peering through the glass doors at the literature within,
in unaccustomed question concerning it.

"She's a case," said the judge, looking at her not only with relenting,
but with the pride in her sufficiency for all the exigencies of life
which he could not feel in Ellen. "She can take care of herself."

"Oh yes," Mrs. Kenton sadly assented, "I don't think anybody will ever
make a fool of Lottie."

"It's a great deal more likely to be the other way," her father
suggested.

"I think Lottie is conscientious," Mrs. Kenton protested. "She wouldn't
really fool with a man."

"No, she's a good girl," the judge owned.

"It's girls like Ellen who make the trouble and the care. They are too
good, and you have to think some evil in this world. Well!" She rose and
gave her husband back his book.

"Do you know where Boyne is?"

"No. Do you want him to be pleasant to Mr. Breckon?"