arm-hearted
points which I did not suspect at first. I will tell you what he just
said to me. As I was coming up-stairs he hurried toward me, and his face
showed that he was very anxious to speak to me. So before he could utter
a word, I told him that he was too early; that his hour had not yet
arrived. Then that good fellow said to me that he had seen I was in
trouble, and that he had been informed it had been caused by bad news
from my family. He had made no inquiries because he did not wish to
intrude upon my private affairs, and all he wished to say now was that
while my mind was disturbed and worried he did not intend to present his
own affairs to my attention, even though I had fixed regular times for
his doing so. But although he wished me to understand that I need not
fear his making love to me just at this time, he wanted me to remember
that his love was still burning as brightly as ever, and would be again
offered me just as soon as he would be warranted in doing so."

"And what did you say to that?" asked Mrs. Easterfield.

"I felt like patting him on the head," Olive answered, "but instead of
doing that I shook his hand just as warmly as I could, and told him I
should not forget his consideration and good feeling."

Mrs. Easterfield sighed. "You have joined him fast to your car," she
said, "and yet, even if there were no one else, he would be impossible."

"Why so?" asked Olive quickly. "I have always liked him, and now I like
him ever so much better. To be sure he is queer; but then he is so much
queerer than I am that perhaps in comparison I might take up the part
of commonplace partner. Besides, he has money enough to live on. He told
me that when he first addressed me. He said he would never ask any woman
to live on pickled verse feet, and he has also told me something of his
family, which must be a good one."

"Olive," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I don't believe at all in the necessity
or the sense in your precipitating plans of marrying. It is all airy
talk, anyway. You can't ask a man to step up and marry you in order that
you may sit down and write a letter to your father. But if you are
thinking of marrying, or rather of preparing to marry at some suitable
time, why, in the name of everything that is reasonable, don't you take
Mr. Lancaster? He is as far above the other young men you have met here
as the mountains are above the plains; he belongs to another class
altogether. He is a thoroughly fine