er husband. "That couldn't come naturally till
after he had spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet."

"You women haven't risen yet--it's an evidence of the backwardness of
your sex--to a conception of the Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man
praises one woman, you still think he's in love with another. Do you
mean that because Tom didn't praise the elder sister so much, he HAS
spoken to HER?"

Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that it did not follow.
"Besides, he did praise her."

"You ought to be glad that matters are in such good shape, then. At
any rate, you can do absolutely nothing."

"Oh! I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish Tom would be a little
opener with me."

"He's as open as it's in the nature of an American-born son to be with
his parents. I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in
regard to the young lady, he would have told you--if he knew."

"Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?"

"I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man
dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at
all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do
with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom
has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else
in town."

"Do you really think so?"

"I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me that a young lady
couldn't do better than stay in or near Boston during the summer. Most
of the young men are here, kept by business through the week, with
evenings available only on the spot, or a few miles off. What was the
proportion of the sexes at the seashore and the mountains?"

"Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a man. It's shameful."

"You see, I am right in one part of my theory. Why shouldn't I be
right in the rest?"

"I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do. Those things are
very serious with girls. I shouldn't like Tom to have been going to
see those people if he meant nothing by it."

"And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are difficult, my dear." Her
husband pulled an open newspaper toward him from the table.

"I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do so," said Mrs. Corey,
going on to entangle herself in her words, as women often do when their
ideas are perfectly clear. "Don't go to reading, please, Bromfield! I
am really worried about this matter I must know how much it means.