know when we came back from our walk, and saw them sitting on the beach
together, I said what a pretty picture they made?"

Naturally, I remembered extremely well.

"That was when they had their great scene. Dick begged me, as an old
friend of yours, to say a word when I found the chance. And I confess,
I've _made_ the chance to-night. I do hope you won't think me
impertinent and interfering? I'm fond of Dick. He's about all I have to
be fond of in the world. And besides--just because I've never been happy
myself, I want others to be, while they're young, not to waste time."

I muttered something, I hardly know what, and she went on to talk to me
of her past, for the first time. Said she had married when little more
than a child, and had made the mistake of marrying a man she thought she
could manage to live happily with, instead of one she couldn't manage to
live happily without. That was all; but it had made _all_ the
difference--and if Miss Lethbridge had given her first love to Dick----

I nearly said, "Hang first love!" but I held my tongue, fortunately, for
of course she meant well, and was only doing her best for her nephew.
But how anyone could love that fellow passes my understanding! Why, it
seems to me the creature's parents could hardly have loved him, unless
he had had something of the monstrous hypnotism, as well as the
selfishness, of a young cuckoo in its stolen nest. Yet the same
hypnotism may influence birds outside the nest, I suppose. That's the
only way to account for an infatuation on the part of Ellaline.

"If you are angry, Dick and I must go away," Mrs. Senter went on. "But
he couldn't help falling in love, and to me they seem made for each
other."

I had to answer that of course I wasn't angry, but I thought any talk of
love premature, to say the least.

"You won't actually refuse your consent, then?" asked she.

"Much good my refusing would do, if the girl really cares!" said I. "I
shan't disinherit her, whatever she does."

Mrs. Senter laughed at that. "Why, even if you did," said she, "it
wouldn't matter greatly to them, because Dick has something of his own,
and she is an heiress, isn't she?"

Then--I don't know whether I was wrong or not--but I swear I made the
answer I did without any mean or selfish motives--if I can read my own
soul. If Burden were a fortune-hunter, I wanted to save her from him,
that's all. I told Mrs. Senter that Ellaline had very little money of
her own.