ruistic impulse.

"Ah, well now, there's a good deal to be said about that," Ralph
rejoined.

"There may be, but that's the principal thing. I must say I think it
looks very exclusive, going round all alone, as if you thought no woman
was good enough for you. Do you think you're better than any one else in
the world? In America it's usual for people to marry."

"If it's my duty," Ralph asked, "is it not, by analogy, yours as well?"

Miss Stackpole's ocular surfaces unwinkingly caught the sun. "Have you
the fond hope of finding a flaw in my reasoning? Of course I've as good
a right to marry as any one else."

"Well then," said Ralph, "I won't say it vexes me to see you single. It
delights me rather."

"You're not serious yet. You never will be."

"Shall you not believe me to be so on the day I tell you I desire to
give up the practice of going round alone?"

Miss Stackpole looked at him for a moment in a manner which seemed to
announce a reply that might technically be called encouraging. But to
his great surprise this expression suddenly resolved itself into an
appearance of alarm and even of resentment. "No, not even then," she
answered dryly. After which she walked away.

"I've not conceived a passion for your friend," Ralph said that evening
to Isabel, "though we talked some time this morning about it."

"And you said something she didn't like," the girl replied.

Ralph stared. "Has she complained of me?"

"She told me she thinks there's something very low in the tone of
Europeans towards women."

"Does she call me a European?"

"One of the worst. She told me you had said to her something that an
American never would have said. But she didn't repeat it."

Ralph treated himself to a luxury of laughter. "She's an extraordinary
combination. Did she think I was making love to her?"

"No; I believe even Americans do that. But she apparently thought you
mistook the intention of something she had said, and put an unkind
construction on it."

"I thought she was proposing marriage to me and I accepted her. Was that
unkind?"

Isabel smiled. "It was unkind to me. I don't want you to marry."

"My dear cousin, what's one to do among you all?" Ralph demanded. "Miss
Stackpole tells me it's my bounden duty, and that it's hers, in general,
to see I do mine!"

"She has a great sense of duty," said Isabel gravely. "She has indeed,
and it's the motive of everything she says. That's what I like her for.
She thin