ng her know it."

"Would you, Rosy? Do you think there's a ghost of a chance?"

"I don't know, Phil: Adele is not one who talks of such things."

"Nor you, I think, Rose."

"Of course not, Phil." And after a little hesitation, "Of whom should I
talk, pray?"

Now it happened that this private conversation took place upon the same
day on which had transpired the interview we have already chronicled
between the Doctor and Miss Johns. Reuben and Adele were to pass the
evening at the Elderkins'. Adele was not of a temper to be greatly
disturbed by the rumor at which the Doctor had hinted of a lost fortune.
(We write, it must be remembered, of a time nearly thirty years gone
by.) Indeed, as she tripped along beside Reuben, it seemed to him that
she had never been in a more jocular and vivacious humor. A reason for
this (and it is what, possibly, many of our readers may count a very
unnatural one) lay in the letter which she had that day received from
her father, in which Maverick, in alluding to a possible _affaire du
coeur_ in connection with Reuben, had counselled her, with great
earnestness, to hold her affections in reserve, and, above all, to
control most rigidly any fancy which she might entertain for the son of
their friend the Doctor.

It amused Adele; for Reuben had been so totally undemonstrative in
matters of sentiment, (possibly keeping his deeper feelings in reserve,)
that Adele had felt over and over a girl's mischievous propensity to
provoke it. Not that she was in any sense heartless; not that she did
not esteem him, and feel a keen sense of gratitude; but his kindest and
largest favors were always attended with such demureness and reticence
of manner as piqued her womanly vanity. For these reasons there was
something exhilarating to her in the intimation conveyed by Maverick's
letters, that she was the party, after all, upon whose decision must
rest the peace of mind of the two, and that she must cultivate the
virtue of treating him with coolness.

Possibly it would have been an easy virtue to cultivate, even though
Reuben's attentions had shown the warmth which the blood of nineteen
feminine years craves in a lover; but as the matter stood, there was
something amusing to her in Maverick's injunction. As if there were any
danger! As if there could be! Should it grow serious some day, it would
be time enough then to consider her good papa's injunction; very
possibly she would pay the utmost heed to it,