ent about a good deal together, and people made pleasant
remarks over their intimacy. This summer the doctor thought about her
on his long drives, and scrutinized the young men who lounged about
his veranda. Most of them were boys in the calf stage, college youths,
who were spoiling with vacation. These the doctor called the puppies,
and treated indulgently. There were others who came to the hotel for
short fortnights, impecunious young business men or lawyers who were
looking about for suitable assistance in life. Such candidates were
submitted to a close scrutiny, but nothing to warrant active measures
had yet occurred.

He had made up his mind precisely about his future son-in-law. For two
years he had studied his daughter, and nothing could shake his
conviction that he had found the only safe conclusion to a difficult
problem--a certain kind of husband. He must be rich, for Maud had
inherited the Ellwell dependence upon luxury. And he must be able to
devote himself pretty steadily to her whims, subordinate himself
good-naturedly, and obtain for her whatever she might fancy for the
time.

"She will want to express herself badly," was the doctor's comment.
"If they should try to express themselves both at the same time, there
would be explosions--rows and divorce and scandal--unhappy children."
Once he said to his wife, forlornly, "She is too clever, poor child.
She has been talking to me like a marchioness of forty for the last
half hour. If this keeps on I shall have to domesticate her great
aunts in order to have some children about the house."

The desirable husband must be able to place her well socially, for
she had already shown herself keen in making distinctions. It gave her
father a wicked pleasure to see her snub young Roper Bradley when he
came with his mother to make their annual summer visit. She never
mentioned her uncle Roper, and she extended compassion to the doctor
on the subject of her grandfather Ellwell.

The doctor was fond of her in spite of his analysis. He thought with
pride that she was thoroughbred, capable of masterly strokes. Yet,
alas! the opportunities for masterly strokes would come so rarely;
meanwhile she was a dangerous, febrile, nervous, chemical
compound--something to be isolated. With her five-day enthusiasms, her
quick wit, her restlessness, her sense of dress, she would be
fascinating.

"If she will only fascinate the right sort!" the doctor prayed. He
smiled savagely at