oticing ladies' clothes."

"Who said anything about clothes?" demanded the colonel, taking his
stand upon the letter.

"Well, don't _you_, at any rate. Yes, I'd like to ride, of all things;
and we've time enough, for breakfast isn't ready till half past eight.
Where's the carriage?"

The only English scholar at Ha-Ha Bay had taken the light wraps of the
ladies and was moving off with them. "This way, this way," he said,
waving his hand towards a larger number of vehicles on the shore than
could have been reasonably attributed to Ha-Ha Bay. "I hope you won't
object to having another passenger with you? There's plenty of room for
all. He seems a very nice, gentlemanly person," said he, with a queer,
patronizing graciousness which he had no doubt caught from his English
patrons.

"The more the merrier," answered Colonel Ellison, and "Not in the
least!" said his wife, not meaning the proverb. Her eye had swept the
whole array of vehicles and had found them all empty, save one, in which
she detected the blamelessly coated back of Mr. Arbuton. But I ought
perhaps to explain Mrs. Ellison's motives better than they can be made
to appear in her conduct. She cared nothing for Mr. Arbuton; and she had
no logical wish to see Kitty in love with him. But here were two young
people thrown somewhat romantically together; Mrs. Ellison was a born
match-maker, and to have refrained from promoting their better
acquaintance in the interest of abstract matrimony was what never could
have entered into her thought or desire. Her whole being closed for the
time about this purpose; her heart, always warm towards Kitty,--whom she
admired with a sort of generous frenzy,--expanded with all kinds of
lovely designs; in a word, every dress she had she would instantly have
bestowed upon that worshipful creature who was capable of adding another
marriage to the world. I hope the reader finds nothing vulgar or
unbecoming in this, for I do not; it was an enthusiasm, pure and simple,
a beautiful and unselfish abandon; and I am sure men ought to be sorry
that they are not worthier to be favored by it. Ladies have often to
lament in the midst of their finesse that, really, no man is deserving
the fate they devote themselves to prepare for him, or, in other words,
that women cannot marry women.

I am not going to be so rash as try to depict Mrs. Ellison's arts, for
then, indeed, I should make her appear the clumsy conspirator she was
not, and should mer