he hopes they'll just send
her some forgiving flowers and greet her with manly hand-clasps--and get
ready to usher at the wedding!"

"Well," said Mr. Atwater, "I'm afraid you're right. It does seem rather
like Julia to stay away till the first of the worst is over. I'm really
sorry for some of 'em. I suppose it _will_ get whispered about, and
they'll hear it; and there are some of the poor things that might take
it pretty hard."

"'Take it pretty hard!'" his wife echoed loudly. "There's _one_ of 'em,
at least, who'll just merely lose his reason!"

"Which one?"

"Noble Dill."

At this, the slender form of Florence underwent a spasmodic seizure in
her chair, but as the fit was short and also noiseless, it passed
without being noticed.

"Yes," said Mr. Atwater thoughtfully. "I suppose he will."

"He certainly will!" Mrs. Atwater declared. "Noble's mother told me last
week that he'd got so he was just as liable to drop a fountain-pen in
his coffee as a lump of sugar; and when any one speaks to him he either
doesn't know it, or else jumps. When he says anything, himself, she says
they can scarcely ever make out what he's talking about. He was trying
enough before Julia went away; but since she's been gone Mrs. Dill says
he's like nothing in her experience. She says he doesn't inherit it;
Mr. Dill wasn't anything like this about her."

Mr. Atwater smiled faintly. "Mrs. Dill wasn't anything like Julia."

"No," said his wife. "She was quite a sensible girl. I'd hate to be in
her place now, though, when she tells Noble about _this_."

"How can Mrs. Dill tell him, since she doesn't know it herself?"

"Well--perhaps she ought to know it, so that she _could_ tell him.
_Somebody_ ought to tell him, and it ought to be done with the greatest
tact. It ought to be broken to him with the most delicate care and
sympathy, or the consequences----"

"Nobody could foretell the consequences," her husband interrupted:--"no
matter how tactfully it's broken to Noble."

"No," she said, "I suppose that's true. I think the poor thing's likely
to lose his reason unless it _is_ done tactfully, though."

"Do you think we really ought to tell Mrs. Dill, Mollie? I mean,
seriously: Do you?"

For some moments she considered his question, then replied, "No. It's
possible we'd be following a Christian course in doing it; but still
we're rather bound not to speak of it outside the family, and when it
does get outside the family I think we'd