-that's the singing one, isn't it? Well, I suppose, Ezry, either of
'em might do worse. Of course, this singing one doesn't remember her
mother much, so I suppose she won't be much affected by your surprise?"
He asked a question, but after his manner went on, "Well, maybe it was
Jap and Ruth that was bothering Mary last night. I kind of thought
someway, for the first time maybe I'd get her. But nothing much came of
it," he said sadly. "It's funny about the way I've never been able to
get her direct, when every one else comes--isn't it?"

The Captain was in no humor for occult things, so he cut in with: "Now
listen here, Amos--what do you think of me asking Mrs. Herdicker to sit
at one end of the table, eh? Of course I know what the girls will
think--but then," he winked with immense slyness, "that's all right. I
was talking to her about it, and she's going to have a brand new
dress--somepin swell--eh? By the jumping John Rogers, Amos--there's a
woman--eh?"

And tightening up his necktie--a scarlet creation of much pride--he
pulled his hat over his eyes, as one who has great affairs under it, and
marched double-quick out of the office.

You may be sure that some kind friend told the Morton girls of what was
in store for them, the kind friend being Mr. George Brotherton, who
being thoroughly married, regarded any secret from his wife in the light
of a real infidelity. So he told her all that he and Market Street knew.
Now the news of the party--a party in whose preparations they were to
have no share, roused in the Misses Morton, and their married sister,
jointly and severally, that devil of suspicion which always tormented
their dreams.

"And, Emma," gasped Martha, when Emma came over for her daily visit,
"just listen! Mrs. Herdicker is having the grandest dress made for the
party! She told the girls in the store she had twenty-seven dollars'
worth of jet on it--just jet alone." Here the handsome Miss Morton
turned pale with the gravity of the news. "She told the girls to-day,
this very afternoon, that she was going to take the three o'clock
morning train right after the party for New York to do her fall buying.
Fall buying, indeed! Fall buying," the handsome Miss Morton's voice
thickened and she cried, "just because papa's got a little money, she
thinks--"

But what she thought Miss Morton never said, for Mrs. Brotherton, still
familiar with the gossip of the schoolhouse, cut in to say: "And,
Martha, what do you t