Miss Caldwell had been receiving her guests in the drawing-room; but there were not many, and being a lady accustomed to do as she pleased, she had followed them down to the dining-room, which was just comfortably full. Conversation was, as it were, forced to be general, and the whole room heard Mrs. Spofford remark that "Malcolm Johnson would be a very poor match for Caroline Foster." "Caroline Foster and Malcolm Johnson, is that an engagement?" asked the stout, good-natured Mrs. Manson, who was tranquilly eating her way through the whole assortment of biscuits and bonbons on the table. "Well, Caroline is a dear, sweet girl--just the kind to make a good wife for a widower." "With five children to start with, and no means that I know of!" said Miss Caldwell, scornfully. "I am sure I hope not!" "I have heard it on the best authority," said the first speaker. "It will take better authority than that to make me believe it." "If he proposes to her," said Mrs. Manson, "I should say she would take him. I never knew Caroline to say no to anyone." "Well," said Miss Caldwell, "I suppose it's natural for a woman to be a fool in such matters--for most women," she corrected herself; "but if Caroline marries Malcolm Johnson I shall think her _too_ foolish--and she has never seemed to me to be lacking in sense." "Perhaps," said the pourer out of tea, a pretty damsel with large dark eyes, a little faded to match the room--"perhaps she wants a sphere." "As if her aunt could not find her fifty spheres if she wanted them!" "Too many, perhaps," said a tall lady with a sensible, school-teaching air. "I have sometimes thought that Mrs. Neal, with managing all her own children's families and her charities, had not much time or thought to spare for poor little Caroline. She is kind to her, but I doubt if she gives her much attention." "A woman likes something of her own," said Mrs. Manson. "Her own!" said Miss Caldwell. "How much good of her own is she likely to have if she marries Malcolm Johnson?" "Yes," said Mrs. Spofford, "his motives would be plain enough; I dare say he's in love with her. Caroline is a lovely girl, but of course in such a case her money goes for something." "But she has not so very much money," said Mildred, dropping a lump of sugar into a cup--"plenty, I suppose, for herself, but it would not support a large family like Mr. Johnson's." "It would pay his taxes, my dear, and buy his coal," said Miss Caldwell, "and he has kept house long enough to appreciate the help _that_ would be." "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Manson, "coal is so terribly high this winter!" "It would be a saving for him to marry anybody," said a thin lady with a sweet smile, slightly soiled gloves, and her bonnet rather on one side. "He tells me that his housekeepers are no end of trouble. He is always changing them, and his children are running wild with it all. He's a very old friend of mine," she added with a conscious air.