to meet all the requirements, put it in train immediately after breakfast.

"What are you going to do with yourself to-day?" he asked of Fleetwell, when they had drawn apart and lighted their cigars.

"Don't know," replied the collegian, between whiffs; "whatever the others want to do."

"I was just thinking," the President continued, carelessly. "The Beaswicke girls want to call on some friends of theirs, and that eliminates them. I expect to be busy all day; and Cousin Jeannette says she doesn't care to go about. Suppose you and Gertrude take a run up into the mountains on one of the narrow-gauges. It'll fill in the day, and you can be back in time for dinner this evening."

"I don't mind, if Gertrude wants to go; but I don't believe she does," said Fleetwell, with so little enthusiasm that the President looked at him sharply.

"Think not?"

"I'm almost sure she doesn't," the collegian replied, placidly.

Mr. Francis Vennor was a conservative man, slow to admit even the contradiction of facts. While waiting for Gertrude the previous evening, he had convinced himself that his daughter was about to sacrifice herself. To an impartial onlooker—and he prided himself on being no less—the evidence was logically conclusive; and, notwithstanding Gertrude's tardy denial, he still believed that his major premise was correct, or, at most, only errant in time.

Having thus set his judgment a bad example, it easily broke bounds again in the same direction. How should Fleetwell know that Gertrude would not care to spend the day in his company? Probably because they had found time before breakfast for another of their foolish disagreements. In that case, it would be the part of wisdom to separate them for the day; and a plan by which this might be accomplished, and the passenger agent checkmated at the same time, suggested itself at the instant.

"We'll let it go at that, then," he said, answering Fleetwell's assumption. "You can manage to wear out the day in town. Perhaps the Beaswicke girls will let you go calling with them."

"Think so? I'll go and ask them," Fleetwell said, with more animation than he had yet exhibited; and he threw away his cigar and went about it.

The President rose and crossed over to Mrs. Dunham's chair.

 Prev. P 50/106 next