d three A's
after his name. I'm sure I don't know what they can stand for, if it's
not Acquaintance, Appeal, and Acceptance. I don't really see what else
I could have done. It seems to have all been arranged without consulting
me at all. One can't very well set one's self up in opposition to a
business guide, you know."

"But he's old enough to be your father, Aunt Helen!"

"That's precisely the reason why there wouldn't have been any sense in
my promising to be a sister to him. You see, I was quite helpless in the
matter from start to finish."

"And it was only last night that you called me preposterous!" laughed
Dorothy. "Really, Aunt Helen, people who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones. I think you are the most absurd creature in the world. Do
you love him?"

"I can even go so far as to say that I think I do," said Mrs. Wynyard,
without a break in her gravity. "I have all the symptoms,--palpitation
of the heart, a morbid craving for Shelley and chocolate caramels, a
tendency to wake up singing, and a failing for flattening my nose
against the window-pane for twenty minutes at a stretch without saying a
word to my poor old aunt, on the mere chance that he may be coming down
the avenue."

The blush which Dorothy paid as tribute to this subtle innuendo came
near to rivaling one of young Nisbet's celebrated performances in the
same line.

"You're making fun of me," she said reproachfully.

"I, my dear?--not the least in the world. It's all as true as the gospel
according to St. Valentine. I've told you first because we're not only
aunt and niece, but the very best friends possible besides, and I knew
you would like to hear the news before any one else. Colonel Broadcastle
is by all odds the finest man I know,--I won't even except John Barclay,
much as I admire him. He has paid me a very great honor. I respect him
tremendously; I trust him absolutely. These alone are good reasons; but
there's a better one,--so much better that nothing else really has any
bearing on the subject. Can you guess?"

"Yes," said Dorothy softly, "you just love him. Isn't that it?"

"Exactly. It's a curious thing, this love. There may be every reason why
one should marry a man, his own wish included, and yet one doesn't.
There may be no reason at all, so far as outsiders can see, and yet one
does! I've known a woman to throw over one suitor who had everything in
his favor--money, character, position--and accept another who had