e of that."

"Humph!" grunted Silas. Then looking hard at the girl, he bluntly asked,
"Is there anything between you and Paul?"

"A good many miles, sir, just now," she answered, making one of those
retorts that Paul thought so fine.

"H-m-m; yes, you are right, a good many miles. Well, there can't be too
many."

"I think you are cruel, sir. Is Paul not to come home any more? Paul is
a very good friend of mine, and I could wish him well wherever he might
be; but how would you feel, sir, if he were never to return?"

"Well, I must go," said Silas somewhat bluntly. When Beauty has a glib
tongue, abler men than Silas find themselves without weapons to cope
with it.

"Shall I tell mother that you have given your promise to call soon?"
Eugenia asked.

"Now, I hope you are not making fun of me," cried Silas with some
irritation.

"How could that be, sir? Don't you think it would be extremely pert in a
young girl to make fun of a gentleman old enough to be her father?"

Silas winced at the comparison. "Well, I have seen some very pert ones,"
he insisted, and with that he bade her good-day with a very ill grace,
and went on about his business, of which he had a good deal of one kind
and another.

"Mother," said Eugenia, after she had given an account of her encounter
with Silas, "I believe the man has a good heart and is ashamed of it."

"Why, I think the same may be said of most of the grand rascals that we
read about in history; and the pity of it is that they would have all
been good men if they had had the right kind of women to deal with them
and direct their careers."

"Do you really think so, mother?" the daughter inquired.

"I'm sure of it," said the lady.

Then after all there might be some hope for old Silas Tomlin. And his
instinct may have given him an inkling of the remedy for his particular
form of the whimsies, for it was not many days before he came knocking
at the lady's door, where he was very graciously received, and most
delightfully entertained. Both mother and daughter did their utmost to
make the hours pass pleasantly, and they succeeded to some extent. For
awhile Silas was suspicious, then he would resign himself to the
temptations of good music and bright conversation. Presently he would
remember his suspicions, and straighten himself up in his chair, and
assume an attitude of defiance; and so the first evening passed. When
Silas found himself in the street on his way home, he stopped