t's the matter with her?" broke out Tom here. "I am not caught, as
you call it, neither by her nor with her; but if you want to discuss
her, I say, what's the matter with her?"

"Nothing, Tom!" said his mother soothingly; "there is nothing whatever
the matter with her; and I have no doubt she is a nice girl. But she
has no education."

"Hang education!" said Tom. "Anybody can pick that up. She can talk, I
can tell you, better than anybody of all those you had round your table
the other day. She's an uncommon good talker."

"You are, you mean," said his sister; "and she listens and makes big
eyes. Of course nothing can be more delightful. But, Tom, she knows
nothing at all; not so much as how to dress herself."

"Wasn't she well enough dressed the other day?"

"Somebody arranged that for her."

"Well, somebody could do it again. You girls think so much of
_dressing_. It isn't the first thing about a woman, after all."

"You men think enough about it, though. What would tempt you to go out
with me if I wasn't _assez bien mise?_ Or what would take any man down
Broadway with his wife if she hadn't a hoop on?"

"Doesn't the lady in question wear a hoop?" inquired Philip.

"No, she don't."

"Singular want of taste!"

"Well, you don't like them; but, after all, it's the fashion, and one
can't help oneself. And, as I said, you may not like them, but you
wouldn't walk with me if I hadn't one."

"Then, to sum up--the deficiencies of this lady, as I understand,
are,--education and a hoop? Is that all?"

"By no means!" cried Mrs. Caruthers. "She is nobody, Philip. She comes
from a family in the country--very respectable people, I have no doubt,
but,--well, she is nobody. No connections, no habit of the world. And
no money. They are quite poor people."

"That _is_ serious," said Dillwyn. "Tom is in such straitened
circumstances himself. I was thinking, he might be able to provide the
hoop; but if she has no money, it is critical."

"You may laugh!" said Miss Julia. "That is all the comfort one gets
from a man. But he does not laugh when it comes to be his own case, and
matters have gone too far to be mended, and he is feeling the
consequences of his rashness."

"You speak as if I were in danger! But I do not see how it should come
to be 'my own case,' as I never even saw the lady. Who is she? and
where is she? and how comes she--so dangerous--to be visiting you?"

All spoke now at once, and Philip heard a