ion which kept his eye. Her talk was very unliterary,
and its effect seemed hardly conscious. She was far from epigram in
her funning. She told of this trifle and that; she sketched the
characters and looks of people who had interested her, and nothing
seemed to have escaped her notice; she mimicked a little, but not much;
she suggested, and then the affair represented itself as if without her
agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped she made a soft cluck in
her throat, as if she liked his being amused, and went on again.

The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first time since he had
come from town, made haste to take the word. "Well, Pert, I've
arranged the whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be satisfied to
know that he owes me twenty thousand dollars, and that I've got
security from him to the amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force
his stocks to a sale."

"How came he to come down with you?" asked Mrs. Lapham.

"Who? Rogers?"

"Mr. Corey."

"Corey? Oh!" said Lapham, affecting not to have thought she could mean
Corey. "He proposed it."

"Likely!" jeered his wife, but with perfect amiability.

"It's so," protested the Colonel. "We got talking about a matter just
before I left, and he walked down to the boat with me; and then he said
if I didn't mind he guessed he'd come along down and go back on the
return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do that."

"It's well for you you couldn't."

"And I couldn't do less than bring him here to tea."

"Oh, certainly not."

"But he ain't going to stay the night--unless," faltered Lapham, "you
want him to."

"Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he'll stay, probably."

"Well, you know how crowded that last boat always is, and he can't get
any other now."

Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope you'll be just as well
satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn't want Irene after all."

"Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing that up for?" pleaded the
Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently his rude, strong face was
clouded with an unconscious frown.

"There!" cried his wife, startling him from his abstraction. "I see
how you'd feel; and I hope that you'll remember who you've got to
blame."

"I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of a man used to
success.

From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy tone came through the
closed windows, with joyous laughter from Irene and peals from Corey.

"List