he ought to be"--

"Utilized," suggested the lady, casting her eyes toward Marguerite and
withdrawing them as quickly, amused at the earnestness of her
attention.

"Yes," said the bachelor, and mused a moment. "He's a talented fellow.
It's only a few months ago that he really began life. Now he's
outgrown my service."

"Left the nest," said the lady.

"Yes, indeed. He has invented"--

"Oh, dear!"

The bachelor was teased. "Ah! come, now; show your usual kindness; he
has, really, made a simple, modest agricultural machine that--meets a
want long felt. Oh! you may laugh; but he laughs last. He has not only
a patent for it, but a good sale also, and is looking around for other
worlds to conquer."

"And yet spurns society? Ours!"

"No, simply develops no affinity for it; would like to, if only to
please me; but can't. Doesn't even make intimate companions among men;
simply clings to his fond, lone father, and the lone father to him,
closer than any pair of twin orphan girls that ever you saw. I don't
believe any thing in life could divide them."

"Ah, don't you trust him! Man proposes, Cupid disposes. A girl will
stick to her mother; but a man? Why, the least thing--a pair of blue
eyes, a yellow curl"--

The bachelor gayly shook his head, and, leaning over with an air of
secrecy, said: "A pair of blue eyes have shot him through and through,
and a yellow curl is wound all round him from head to heel, and yet he
sticks to his father."

"He can't live," said the lady. Marguerite's hand pressed her arm, and
they rose. As the bachelor drew the light curtain of a long window
aside, that they might pass in, the light fell upon Marguerite's face.
It was entirely new to him. It seemed calm. Yet instantly the question
smote him, "What have I done? what have I said?" She passed, and
turned to give a parting bow. The light fell upon him. She was right;
it was Claude's friend, the engineer.

When he came looking for them a few minutes later, he only caught, by
chance, a glimpse of them, clouded in light wraps and passing to their
carriage. It was not yet twelve.

Between Marguerite's chamber and that of one of the daughters of the
family there was a door that neither one ever fastened. Somewhere
down-stairs a clock was striking three in the morning, when this door
softly opened and the daughter stole into Marguerite's room in her
night-robe. With her hair falling about her, her hands unconsciously
clasped, her eyes s