d put your foot down firmly if
you liked."

Henry laughed, pleased at the interest taken in him, and conscious that
he was made much of in this house.

"There may never be any occasion for me to try it," he replied; "even if
a vacancy does arise, my age may bar me."

"Not at all; the great Delane was scarcely twenty-four when he got the
editorship of the _Times_," Edgar remarked, with the conviction that he
had displayed a deep knowledge of journalistic history and settled this
point.

"Besides," added Flo, "you are one of those men whose age is not written
on their face. I'm sure no one could guess whether you were twenty or
thirty. You could pass for any age you like to name."

"There's something in that," said Henry musingly; "but I'm afraid I must
confess that I was only twenty-two last birthday."

"Great Scott! and you'll soon be bossing some chaps old enough to be
your pater. The snows of four-and-twenty winters have fallen on my own
cranium. It makes me sick to think of it."

From Edgar, obviously.

All this was very sweet to Henry. At twenty-two the average man tingles
with pleasure when it is suggested that he would pass for thirty, and at
thirty he is secretly purchasing hair-restorers for application to the
crown of his head, and plying a razor where he had been wont to
cultivate a moustache. He is charmed then beyond measure when his age is
guessed at twenty-two.

Mr. Winton settled down in an arm-chair in the dining-room for his
after-supper snooze, and while Mrs. Winton had to turn her attention for
a little to household affairs, superintending the inefficient
maid-of-all-work--whose presence in the house was another mark of
prosperity--the others withdrew to the drawing-room. Edgar lounged about
aimlessly for a time, and then suddenly pleaded the urgency of a letter
he had to write. Henry and Flo were left alone.

This sort of thing occurs often in the lives of young men who are
"eligible," but it is not until they have ceased to be in that blissful
condition that they suspect a woman's hand had some part in arranging
these accidental openings for confidences. Flo looked certainly as
innocent as a dove when Edgar withdrew to his study; but if Henry's eyes
had been wide open he might have noticed that Edgar's recollection of
his urgent letter was preceded by a meaning look and a contraction of
the brows from his sister.

"Now," she said softly, turning to Henry with an air of eager interest,