urry," Cosden replied cheerfully; "are you?"

"I have forgotten how to hurry, after these delicious weeks here," Edith
answered, leaning back in her rustic chair. "I think it agrees with me
to be deliberate, as Marian is. I am going to cultivate it."

"You are deliberate with me, all right," he declared. "I don't quite
understand myself nowadays. Usually when I find that I am making little
progress along one line I shift onto another, but now I seem perfectly
contented to sit back and watch you act your part. That shows that
there's something deeper in all this, doesn't it?"

"You might shift back to Merry," she replied calmly.

"No," he said with decision; "I've learned the rules now, and you don't
catch me revoking.--Tell me, if you don't like me, why do you let me
hang around like this, and if you do like me, what's the use of putting
me off so long?"

"There are loads of people I don't even take the trouble to like or
dislike, whom I 'put off,' as you call it."

"Do you really dislike me?"

"No," Edith drawled slowly, as if deliberating; "I can't say that. In
fact I think I rather like you--in spots."

Cosden leaned forward eagerly. "Isn't it stronger than that?" he
demanded.

"I can't say it is," she replied, her voice manifesting the same
interest which she might show if he had asked any other commonplace
question; "but don't get down on your knees now, for here comes the tea
and I loathe demonstration before servants."

"All right," Cosden said with resignation but without losing his
cheerfulness; "you don't discourage me a bit. I guess counsel is just
collecting a little extra fee for that break in Bermuda. I'll wait."

"I know how many lumps you take in your tea, and I know that you prefer
cream, but shall I pass you the raspberry jam?"

"No, thank you," he replied promptly. "My mother always used to dose me
up with calomel disguised in raspberry jam, and I can't eat it now
without tasting the medicine."

"Very well," Edith laughed, "try some honey. But please tell me what has
put your friend Monty in the dumps. At Bermuda he was stimulating, but
down here he's as cheerful as a crutch."

"Monty in the dumps?" Cosden echoed, surprised. "Why, I hadn't noticed
it. Just before Hamlen came to visit him, he was way down,--bemoaned his
age, and all that sort of thing. I thought we'd got him out of that. I
must look him over and see what the trouble is.--Here come our hostess
and Hamlen. Did you ever s