-WOULD you? Oh, how good you always are, Pen! And you
always say what you think. I wish there was some one coming to see you
too. That's all that I don't like about it. Perhaps----He was telling
about his friend there in Texas----"

"Well," said Penelope, "his friend couldn't call often from Texas. You
needn't ask Mr. Corey to trouble about me, 'Rene. I think I can manage
to worry along, if you're satisfied."

"Oh, I AM, Pen. When do you suppose he'll come again?" Irene pushed
some of Penelope's things aside on the dressing-case, to rest her elbow
and talk at ease. Penelope came up and put them back.

"Well, not to-night," she said; "and if that's what you're sitting up
for----"

Irene caught her round the neck again, and ran out of the room.

The Colonel was packed off on the eight o'clock boat the next morning;
but his recovery did not prevent Corey from repeating his visit in a
week. This time Irene came radiantly up to Penelope's room, where she
had again withdrawn herself. "You must come down, Pen," she said.
"He's asked if you're not well, and mamma says you've got to come."

After that Penelope helped Irene through with her calls, and talked
them over with her far into the night after Corey was gone. But when
the impatient curiosity of her mother pressed her for some opinion of
the affair, she said, "You know as much as I do, mother."

"Don't he ever say anything to you about her--praise her up, any?"

"He's never mentioned Irene to me."

"He hasn't to me, either," said Mrs. Lapham, with a sigh of trouble.
"Then what makes him keep coming?"

"I can't tell you. One thing, he says there isn't a house open in
Boston where he's acquainted. Wait till some of his friends get back,
and then if he keeps coming, it'll be time to inquire."

"Well!" said the mother; but as the weeks passed she was less and less
able to attribute Corey's visits to his loneliness in town, and turned
to her husband for comfort.

"Silas, I don't know as we ought to let young Corey keep coming so. I
don't quite like it, with all his family away."

"He's of age," said the Colonel. "He can go where he pleases. It
don't matter whether his family's here or not."

"Yes, but if they don't want he should come? Should you feel just right
about letting him?"

"How're you going to stop him? I swear, Persis, I don't know what's got
over you! What is it? You didn't use to be so. But to hear you talk,
you'd think those Coreys