ee, but
which did not escape Charles. Dare's dark sentimental eyes spoke volumes
of--not sermons--at that moment.

"Oh, Uncle Charles!" whispered Molly, who had been allowed to sit up
about two hours beyond her nominal bedtime, at which hour she rarely
felt disposed to retire--"oh, Uncle Charles! 'The brightest jewel in his
crown!' Don't you wish you and me could sing together like that?"

Charles moved impatiently, and took up his paper again.

The evening passed all too quickly for Dare, who loved music and the
sound of his own voice, and he had almost forgotten, until Charles left
him and Ralph alone together in the smoking-room, that he had come to
discuss his affairs with the latter.

"Dear me," said Evelyn, who had followed her cousin to her room after
they had dispersed for the night, and was looking out of Ruth's window,
"that must be Charles walking up and down on the lawn. Well, now, how
thoughtful he is to leave Mr. Dare and Ralph together. You know, Ruth,
poor Mr. Dare's affairs are in a very bad way, and he has come to talk
things over with my Ralph."

"I hope Ralph will make him put his cottages in order," said Ruth, with
sudden interest, shaking back her hair from her shoulders. "Do you think
he will?"

"Whatever Ralph advises will be sure to be right," replied Evelyn, with
the soft conviction of his infallibility which caused her to be
considered by most of Ralph's masculine friends an ideal wife. It is
women without reasoning powers of any kind whom the nobler sex should be
careful to marry if they wish to be regarded through life in this
delightful way by their wives. Men not particularly heroic in
themselves, who yet are anxious to pose as heroes in their domestic
circle, should remember that the smallest modicum of common-sense on the
part of the worshipper will inevitably mar a happiness, the very
existence of which depends entirely on a blind unreasoning devotion. In
middle life the absence of reason begins perhaps to be felt; but why in
youth take thought for such a far-off morrow!

"I hope he will," said Ruth, half to herself. "What an opportunity that
man has if he only sees it. There is so much to be done, and it is all
in his hands."

"Yes, it's not entailed; but I don't think there is so very much," said
Evelyn. "But then, so long as people are nice, I never care whether they
are rich or poor. That is the first question I ask when people come into
the neighborhood. Are they really n