it is!" Gaston delightedly smiled.

His companion laid a hand on the door, but paused a moment. "Now are you
very sure?"

"I thought I was, but you make me nervous."

"Because there was a gentleman here last year--I'd have put my money on
HIM."

Gaston wondered. "A gentleman--last year?"

"Mr. Flack. You met him surely. A very fine man. I thought he rather hit
it off with her."

"Seigneur Dieu!" Gaston Probert murmured under his breath.

Mr. Dosson had opened the door; he made his companion pass into the
small dining-room where the table was spread for the noonday breakfast.
"Where are the chickens?" he disappointedly asked. His visitor at
first supposed him to have missed a customary dish from the board, but
recognised the next moment his usual designation of his daughters. These
young ladies presently came in, but Francie looked away from the suitor
for her hand. The suggestion just dropped by her father had given him a
shock--the idea of the newspaper-man's personal success with so rare
a creature was inconceivable--but her charming way of avoiding his eye
convinced him he had nothing to really fear from Mr. Flack.

That night--it had been an exciting day--Delia remarked to her sister
that of course she could draw back; upon which as Francie repeated the
expression with her so markedly looser grasp, "You can send him a note
saying you won't," Delia explained.

"Won't marry him?"

"Gracious, no! Won't go to see his sister. You can tell him it's her
place to come to see you first."

"Oh I don't care," said Francie wearily.

Delia judged this with all her weight. "Is that the way you answered him
when he asked you?"

"I'm sure I don't know. He could tell you best."

"If you were to speak to ME that way I guess I'd have said 'Oh well, if
you don't want it any more than that--!'"

"Well, I wish it WAS you," said Francie.

"That Mr. Probert was me?"

"No--that you were the one he's after."

"Francie Dosson, are you thinking of Mr. Flack?" her sister suddenly
broke out.

"No, not much."

"Well then what's the matter?"

"You've ideas and opinions; you know whose place it is and what's due
and what ain't. You could meet them all," Francie opined.

But Delia was indifferent to this tribute. "Why how can you say, when
that's just what I'm trying to find out!"

"It doesn't matter anyway; it will never come off," Francie went on.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He'll give me up in a few weeks. I'