“Foolish? she’s an unladylike person!” cried Miss North, with so much feeling that her mother looked at her in mild astonishment. “And coarse, too,” said Mary North; “I think married ladies are apt to be coarse. From association with men, I suppose.”

“What has she done?” demanded Mrs. North, much interested.

“She hinted that he—that you—”

“Well?”

“That he came here to—to see you.”

“Well, who else would he come to see? Not you!” said her mother.

“She hinted that he might want to—to marry you.”

“Well—upon my word! I knew she was a ridiculous creature, but really—!”

Mary’s face softened with relief. “Of course she is foolish; but—”

“Poor Alfred! What has he ever done to have such a daughter-in-law? Mary, the Lord gives us our children; but Somebody Else gives us our in-laws!”

“Mother!” said Mary North, horrified, “you do say such things! But really he oughtn’t to come so often. People will begin to notice it; and then they’ll talk. I’ll—I’ll take you away from Old Chester rather than have him bother you.”

“Mary, you are just as foolish as his daughter-in-law,” said Mrs. North, impatiently.

And, somehow, poor Mary North’s heart sank.

Nor was she the only perturbed person in town that night. Mrs. Cyrus had a headache, so it was necessary for Cyrus to hold her hand and assure her that Willy King said a headache did not mean brain-fever.

“Willy King doesn’t know everything. If he had headaches like mine, he wouldn’t be so sure. I am always worrying about things, and I believe my brain can’t stand it. And now I’ve got your father to worry about!”

“Better try and sleep, Gussie. I’ll put some Kaliston on your head.”

“Kaliston! Kaliston won’t keep me from worrying. Oh, listen to that harmonicon!”

“Gussie, I’m sure he isn’t thinking of Mrs. North.”

“Mrs. North is thinking of him, which is a great deal more dangerous. Cyrus, you must ask Dr. Lavendar to interfere.”

As this was at least the twentieth assault upon poor Cyrus’s common-sense, the citadel trembled.

“Do you wish me to go into brain-fever before your eyes, just from worry?” Gussie demanded. “You must go!”

“Well, maybe, perhaps, to-morrow—”

“To-night—to-night,” said Augusta, faintly.

And Cyrus surrendered.

“Look under the bed before you go,” Gussie murmured.

Cyrus looked. “Nobody there,” he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus’s heart reproached him.

“How’s her head, Cy?” the Captain called out.

“Oh, better, I guess,” Cyrus said. (“I’ll be hanged if I speak to Dr. Lavendar!”)

“That’s good,” said the Captain, beginning to hoist himself up out of his chair. “Going out? Hold hard, and I’ll go ’long. I want to call on Mrs. North.”

Cyrus stiffened. “Cold night, sir,” he remonstrated.

“‘Your granny was Murray, and wore a black nightcap!’” said the Captain; “you are getting delicate in your old age, Cy.” He got up, and plunged into his coat, and tramped out, slamming the door heartily behind him—for which, later, poor Cyrus got the credit. “Where you bound?”

“Oh—down-street,” said Cyrus, vaguely.

“Sealed orders?” said the Captain, with never a bit of curiosity in his big, kind voice; and Cyrus felt as small as he was. But when he left the old man at Mrs. North’s door, he was uneasy again. Maybe Gussie was right! Women are keener about those things than men. And his uneasiness actually carried him to Dr. Lavendar’s study, where he tried to appear at ease by patting Danny.

“What’s the matter with you, Cyrus?” said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him over his spectacles. (Dr. Lavendar, in his wicked old heart, always wanted to call this young man Cipher; but, so far, grace had been given him to withstand temptation.) “What’s wrong?” he said.

And Cyrus, somehow, told his troubles.

At first Dr. Lavendar chuckled; then he frowned. “Gussie put you up to this, Cy—rus?” he said.

“Well, my wife’s a woman,” Cyrus began, “and they’re keener on such matters than men; and she said, perhaps you would—would—”

“What?” Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe, so loudly that Danny opened one eye. “Would what?”

“Well,” Cyrus stammered, “you know, Dr. Lavendar, as Gussie says, ‘there’s no fo—’”

“You needn’t finish it,” Dr. Lavendar interrupted, dryly; “I’ve heard it before. Gussie didn’t say anything about a young fool, did she?” Then he eyed Cyrus. “Or a middle-aged one? I’ve seen middle-aged fools that could beat us old fellows hollow.”

“Oh, but Mrs. North is far beyond middle age,” said Cyrus, earnestly.

Dr. Lavendar shook his head. “Well, well!” he said. “To think that Alfred Price should have such a— And yet he is as sensible a man as I know!”

“Until now,” Cyrus amended. “But Gussie thought you’d better caution him. We don’t want him, at his time of life, to make a mistake.”

“It’s much more to the point that I should caution you not to make a mistake,” said Dr. Lavendar; and then he rapped on the table again, sharply. “The Captain has no such idea—unless Gussie has given it to him. Cyrus, my advice to you is to go home and tell your wife not to be a goose. I’ll tell her, if you want me to?”

“Oh no, no!” said Cyrus, very much frightened. “I’m afraid you’d hurt her feelings.”

“I’m afraid I should,” said Dr. Lavendar, grimly.

“She’s so sensitive,” Cyrus tried to excuse her; “you can’t think how sensitive she is, and timid. I never knew anybody so timid! Why, she makes me look under the bed every night, for fear there’s somebody there!”

“Well, next time, tell her ‘two men and a dog’; that will take her mind off your father.” It must be confessed that Dr. Lavendar was out of temper—a sad fault in one of his age, as Mrs. Drayton often said; but his irritability was so marked that Cyrus finally slunk off, uncomforted, and afraid to meet Gussie’s eye, even under its bandage of a cologne-scented handkerchief.

However, he had to meet it, and he tried to make the best of his own humiliation by saying that Dr. Lavendar was shocked at the idea of the Captain being interested in Mrs. North. “He said father had been, until now, as sensible a man as he knew, and he didn’t believe he would think of such a dreadful thing. And neither do I, Gussie, honestly,” Cyrus said.

“But Mrs. North isn’t sensible,” Gussie protested, “and she’ll—”

“Dr. Lavendar said ‘there was no fool like a middle-aged fool,’” Cyrus agreed.

“Middle-aged! She’s as old as Methuselah!”

“That’s what I told him,” said Cyrus.

By the end of April Old Chester smiled. How could it help it? Gussie worried so that she took frequent occasion to point out possibilities; and after the first gasp of