was the disagreeable daughter like? Shall you have her?"

"She's little and dark. We must have them all," Mrs. Corey sighed.
"Then you don't think a dinner would do?"

"Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown Tom's relation to them,
whatever it is. We had much better recognise it, and make the best of
the inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be delightful." He
looked at her with delicate irony in his voice and smile, and she
fetched another sigh, so deep and sore now that he laughed outright.
"Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be the best way of curing Tom of his
fancy, if he has one. He has been seeing her with the dangerous
advantages which a mother knows how to give her daughter in the family
circle, and with no means of comparing her with other girls. You must
invite several other very pretty girls."

"Do you really think so, Bromfield?" asked Mrs. Corey, taking courage a
little. "That might do," But her spirits visibly sank again. "I don't
know any other girl half so pretty."

"Well, then, better bred."

"She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleasing."

"Well, more cultivated."

"Tom doesn't get on with such people."

"Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see."

"No, no."

"Then you'd better give the dinner to bring them together, to promote
the affair."

"You know I don't want to do that, Bromfield. But I feel that we must
do something. If we don't, it has a clandestine appearance. It isn't
just to them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse position, and may
leave us in a better. Yes," said Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful
interval, "we must have them--have them all. It could be very simple."

"Ah, you can't give a dinner under a bushel, if I take your meaning, my
dear. If we do this at all, we mustn't do it as if we were ashamed of
it. We must ask people to meet them."

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "There are not many people in town yet," she
added, with relief that caused her husband another smile. "There
really seems a sort of fatality about it," she concluded religiously.

"Then you had better not struggle against it. Go and reconcile Lily
and Nanny to it as soon as possible."

Mrs. Corey blanched a little. "But don't you think it will be the best
thing, Bromfield?"

"I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that shakes my faith in the
scheme is the fact that I first suggested it. But if you have adopted
it, it must be all right, Anna. I can't say that I expected i