ake yourself agreeable to Miss Frere.
Where could you do better?'

'I have no time for that now, sir.'

'Time! What is time? Don't you admire her?'

'Everyone must do that.'

'I have an idea she don't dislike you. It would suit your mother and me
very well. She has not money, but she has everything else. There has
been no girl more admired in Washington these two winters past; no
girl. You would have a prize, I can tell you, that many a one would
like to hinder your getting.'

'I have no time, sir, now; and I must find out my old friends, first of
all.'

'Do you mean, you want to marry _that_ girl?' said Mr. Dallas,
imprudently flaming out.

Pitt was at the moment engaged in mending up a precious old volume,
which by reason of age and use had become dangerously dilapidated. He
was manipulating skilfully, as one accustomed to the business, with awl
and a large needle, surrounded by his glue-pot and bits of leather and
paper. At the question he lifted up his head and looked at his father.
Mr. Dallas did not like the look; it was too keen and had too much
recognition in it; he feared he had unwarily showed his play. But Pitt
answered then quietly, going on with his work again.

'I said nothing of that, sir; I do not know anything about that. My old
friends may be in distress; both or one of them; it is not at all
unlikely, I think. If things had gone well with them, you would have
been almost sure to hear of their whereabouts at least. I made a
promise, at any rate, and I am bound to find them, one side or the
other of the Atlantic.'

'Don Quixote!' muttered his father. 'Colonel Gainsborough, I have no
doubt, has gone home to his people, whom he ought never to have left.'

'In that case I can certainly find them.'

Mr. Dallas seldom made the mistake of spoiling his cause with words; he
let the matter drop, though his mouth was full of things he would have
liked to speak.

So the time came for Pitt's departure, and he went; and the two women
he left behind him hardly dared to look at each other; the one lest she
should betray her sorrow, and the other lest she should seem to see it.
Betty honestly suffered. She had found Pitt's society delightful; it
had all the urbanity without the emptiness of that she was accustomed
to. Whether right or wrong, he was undoubtedly a person in earnest, who
meant his life to be something more than a dream or a play, and who had
higher ends in view than to understand dining, o