est of us."

"Not to me; and you needn't hear him."

"I can't help it if I'm at home."

"But you needn't be at home when he comes."

"Oh, I suppose I could go over and stand on the lake shore, but it
would be rather unpleasant this time of year."

"There are other places you can go."

"Oh, I suppose so. Doesn't make any difference to you, of course,
where I go."

"Not much," she answered.

The Witherspoon family was gathered one evening in the mother's room.
It was Mrs. Witherspoon's birthday, and it was a home-like picture,
this family group, with the mother sitting in a rocking-chair, fondly
looking about and giving the placid heed of love to Henry whenever he
spoke. On the walls were hung the portraits of early Puritans, the
brave and rugged ancestors of Uncle Louis and Uncle Harvey, and all
her mother's people, who were dark.

Ellen had been imitating a Miss Miller, who, it was said, was making a
determined set at Henry, and Witherspoon was laughing at the aptness
of his daughter's mimicry.

"I must confess," said Mrs. Witherspoon, slowly rocking herself, "that
I don't see anything to laugh at. Miss Miller is an exceedingly nice
girl, I'm sure, but I don't think she is at all suited to my son. She
giggles at everything, and Henry is too sober-minded for that sort of
a wife."

"But marriage would probably cure her giggling," Witherspoon replied,
slyly winking at Henry. "To a certain kind of a girl there is nothing
that so inspires a giggle as the prospect of marriage, but marriage
itself is the greatest of all soberers--it sometimes removes all
traces of the previous intoxication."

"Now, George, what is the use of talking that way?" She rarely called
him George. "You know as well as you know anything that I didn't
giggle. Of course I was lively enough, but I didn't go about giggling
as Miss Miller does."

"Oh, perhaps not exactly as Miss Miller does, but"--

"George!"

"I say you didn't. But anybody can see that Ellen is a sensible girl,
and yet she giggles."

"Not at the prospect of marriage, papa," the girl replied. "To look at
Mr. Brooks and his wife is quite enough to make me serious."

"Brooks and his wife? What do you mean?"

"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said anything, but they appear to make
each other miserable. There, now, I wish I _hadn't_ said anything. I
might have known that it would make you look glum."

"How do you know that they make each other miserable?"

"I know this, th