in 'Frisco, or Los Angeles, or Santa Fe, or somewhere out West, and he
saw a great deal of the daughter, who was up in the White Mountains.
She was traveling with her brother and his wife, and as they journeyed
from hotel to hotel, Duncan went with them, and filled out the
quartette. Before the end of the summer he began to think about
proposing. Of course he had lots of chances, going on excursions as
they were every day. He made up his mind to seize the first
opportunity, and that very evening he took her out for a moonlight row
on Lake Winnipiseogee. As he handed her into the boat he resolved to do
it, and he had a glimmer of a suspicion that she knew he was going to
do it, too."

"Girls," said Dear Jones, "never go out in a row-boat at night with a
young man unless you mean to accept him."

"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and get it over once for all," said
Baby Van Rensselaer.

"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden chill. He tried to shake
it off, but in vain. He began to have a growing consciousness of
impending evil. Before he had taken ten strokes--and he was a swift
oarsman--he was aware of a mysterious presence between him and Miss
Sutton."

"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning him off the match?"
interrupted Dear Jones.

"That's just what it was," said Uncle Larry. "And he yielded to it, and
kept his peace, and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with his
proposal unspoken."

"More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will take more than one ghost to
keep me from proposing when my mind is made up." And he looked at Baby
Van Rensselaer.

"The next morning," continued Uncle Larry, "Eliphalet overslept
himself, and when he went down to a late breakfast he found that the
Suttons had gone to New York by the morning train. He wanted to follow
them at once, and again he felt the mysterious presence overpowering
his will. He struggled two days, and at last he roused himself to do
what he wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived in New York it
was late in the evening. He dressed himself hastily and went to the
hotel where the Suttons put up, in the hope of seeing at least her
brother. The guardian angel fought every inch of the walk with him,
until he began to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take him, the
spook would forbid the banns. At the hotel he saw no one that night,
and he went home determined to call as early as he could the next
afternoon, and make an end of it. When he left his