It was not the first time that Mrs. Pasmer had reasoned in this round; but the utterance of her thoughts seemed to throw a new light on them, and she took a courage from them that they did not always impart. She arrived at the final opinion expressed, with a throb of tenderness for the young fellow whom she believed eager to take her daughter from her, and now for the first time she experienced a desolation in the prospect, as if it were an accomplished fact. She was morally a bundle of finesses, but at the bottom of her heart her daughter was all the world to her. She had made the girl her idol, and if, like some other heathen, she had not always used her idol with the greatest deference, if she had often expected the impossible from it, and made it pay for her disappointment, still she had never swerved from her worship of it. She suddenly asked herself, What if this young fellow, so charming and so good, should so wholly monopolise her child that she should no longer have any share in her? What if Alice, who had so long formed her first care and chief object in life, should contentedly lose herself in the love and care of another, and both should ignore her right to her? She answered herself with a pang that this might happen with any one Alice married, and that it would be no worse, at the worst, with Dan Mavering than with another, while her husband remained impartially silent. Always keeping within the lines to which his wife's supremacy had driven him, he felt safe there, and was not to be easily coaxed out of them. Mrs. Pasmer rose and left him, with his perfect acquiescence, and went into her daughter's room. She found Alice there, with a pretty evening dress laid out on her bed. Mrs. Pasmer was very fond of that dress, and at the thought of Alice in it her spirits rose again. “Oh, are you going, Alice?” “Why, yes,” answered the girl. “Didn't you accept?” “Why, yes,” Mrs. Pasmer admitted. “But aren't you tired?” “Oh, not in the least. I feel as fresh as I did this morning. Don't you want me to go?” “Oh yes, certainly, I want you to go--if you think you'll enjoy it.” “Enjoy it? Why, why shouldn't I enjoy it, mamma!” “What are you thinking about? It's going to be the greatest kind of fun.” “But do you think you ought to look at everything simply as fun?” asked the mother, with unwonted didacticism. “How everything? What are you thinking about, mamma?” “Oh, nothing! I'm so glad you're going to wear that dress.” “Why, of course! It's my best. But what are you driving at, mamma?” Mrs. Pasmer was really seeking in her daughter that comfort of a distinct volition which she had failed to find in her husband, and she wished to assure herself of it more and more, that she might share with some one the responsibility which he had refused any part in. “Nothing. But I'm glad you wish so much to go.” The girl dropped her hands and stared. “You must have enjoyed yourself to-day,” she added, as if that were an explanation.