he
will never live abroad, and Cousin Henri thinks Paris is the center of
the world."

"How will they manage?"

Doris laughed. She did not just see herself.

But Betty's romance came to light presently. It had begun during her
winter in New York, but it had not run smoothly. Betty had a rather
quick wit and was fond of teasing, and there had been "differences" not
easily settled. Mr. Harman Gaynor had risen to the distinction of a
partnership in the King firm, and on meeting Betty again, with the young
Frenchman at her elbow, had presented his claim in such a way that Betty
yielded. When Mr. Gaynor came to Boston to have a conference with Mrs.
Leverett--for fathers and mothers still had authority in such
matters--Betty's engagement was announced and the marriage set for
spring.

Somehow it was a delightful winter. But after a little one person began
to feel strangely apprehensive, and this was Cary Adams.

"I suppose Doris and her third- or fourth-cousin will make a match?"
Madam Royall said one evening when they had been playing morris and she
had won the rubber. "How can you let her go away?"

"She will never leave father," exclaimed Cary confidently.

There was a sudden stricture all over his body. It seemed as if some
cold hand had clutched both heart and brain.

He walked home in the bright, fresh air. It was barely ten. He passed De
la Maur on the way and they greeted each other. The parlor windows were
darkened, his father was alone in the study, and everyone else had gone
to bed.

"I wish you had been home," said his father glancing up. "De la Maur has
been reciting Racine, and I have never heard anything finer! I wish he
could read Shakspere. He certainly is a delightful person, so cultured
and appreciative. It makes me feel that we really are a new people."

Could no one see the danger? How happened it his father was so blind?
Did Doris really care? She had not loved Captain Hawthorne, a man worthy
of any woman's love. Cary had a confident feeling that in five years
they would see him again. But he would be too old for Doris--thirteen
years between them. Yet his father had been fifteen years older than his
mother. Doris was so guileless, so simply honest, and if she loved--how
curiously she had kept from friendships or intimacies with young men!
Eudora had a train of admirers. So had Helen and Alice in their day.

When he had met Mrs. Sargent he knew it had only been a boyish fancy for
Alice Roya