r selected for her visit.

Her father did not notice her.

"If Mrs. Baxter should ever propose to me," he went on thoughtfully, "I
shouldn't refuse. I don't think I should have the--"

"The chance?" said his daughter.

"I was going to say the fortitude. But this," he went on, "was an elderly
cousin, who expressed a wish to come and be my housekeeper. Perhaps
matrimony was not intended. Mathilde, my dear, how does one tell nowadays
whether one is being proposed to or not?"

In this poignant and unexpected crisis Mathilde turned slowly and
painfully crimson. How _did_ one tell? It was a question which at the
moment was anything but clear to her.

"I should always assume it in doubtful cases, sir," said Wayne, very
distinctly. He and Mathilde did not even glance at each other.

"It wasn't your proposal that you came to announce to us, though, was
it, Papa?" said Adelaide.

"No," answered Mr. Lanley. "The fact is, I've been arrested."

"Again?"

"Yes; most unjustly, most unjustly." His brows contracted, and then
relaxed at a happy memory. "It's the long, low build of the car. It looks
so powerful that the police won't give you a chance. It was nosing
through the park--"

"At about thirty miles an hour," said Farron.

"Well, not a bit over thirty-five. A lovely morning, no one in sight, I
may have let her out a little. All of a sudden one of these mounted
fellows jumped out from the bushes along the bridle-path. They're a
fine-looking lot, Vincent."

Farron asked who the judge was, and, Mr. Lanley named him--named him
slightly wrong, and Farron corrected him.

"I'll get you off," he said.

Adelaide looked up at her husband admiringly. This was the aspect of him
that she loved best. It seemed to her like magic what Vincent could do.
Her father, she thought, took it very calmly. What would have happened to
him if she had not brought Farron into the family to rescue and protect?
The visiting boy, she noticed, was properly impressed. She saw him give
Farron quite a dog-like look as he took his departure. To Mathilde he
only bowed. No arrangements had been made for a future meeting. Mathilde
tried to convey to him in a prolonged look that if he would wait only
five minutes all would be well, that her grandfather never paid long
visits; but the door closed behind him. She became immediately
overwhelmed by the fear, which had an element of desire in it, too, that
her family would fall to discussing him, would que