four of the Corner House girls. "I'll be glad when they are all
grown up, and married, and settled down."

"My certie! but you are in haste, woman," gasped the housekeeper. "And
it sounds right-down wicked. Wishing the bairns' lives away."

"Do you realize what it's going to mean--these next four or five years?"
snapped Aunt Sarah.

"In what way, Miss Maltby?" asked Mrs. MacCall.

"For us," said Aunt Sarah, nodding emphatically. "We're going to have
the house cluttered up with boys and young men who will want to marry my
nieces."

"Lawk!" gasped the housekeeper. "Will they be standin' in line, think
you? Not but the bonny lassies deserve the best there is--"

"Which isn't saying much when it comes to a choice of _men_," Aunt Sarah
sniffed.

"Well," returned Mrs. MacCall, slowly, "of course there'll be none
worthy of the lassies. None who deserves our Ruthie. Yet--I'm
thinkin'--that that young laddie that was here now--you know, Miss
Maltby. Luke Shepard."

"A likeable boy," admitted Aunt Sarah, and that was high praise from the
critical spinster.

"Aye," Mrs. MacCall hastened to say, "a very fine young man indeed. And
I am moved to say Ruthie liked him."

"Eh!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.

"You maybe didn't see it. It was plain to me. They two were very fond of
each other. Yes, indeed!"

"My niece _fond_ of a boy?" gasped the spinster, bridling.

"Why! were ye not just now speakin' of such a possibeelity?" demanded
the housekeeper, and in her surprise, dropping for the moment into broad
Scotch. "And they are baith of them old enough tae be thinkin' of
matin'. Yes!"

Aunt Sarah still stared in amazement. "Can it be _that_ that seems to
have changed Ruth so?" she asked at last.

"You've noticed it?" cried the Scotchwoman.

"Yes. As you have suggested, she seems down-hearted. But why--"

"There's something that went wrong. 'Love's young dream,' as they say,
is having a partial eclipse, so it is! I see no letters comin' from that
college where the laddie has gone."

"But she hears from Cecile Shepard," said Aunt Sarah. "She reads me
extracts from Cecile's letters. A very lively and pleasant girl is
Cecile."

"So she is," admitted the housekeeper. "But I'm a sight more interested
in the laddie. Why doesn't he write?"

"Why--er--would that be quite the thing, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Aunt
Sarah, momentarily losing much of her grimness and seemingly somewhat
fluttered by this discussion of Ruth's affair.

"'