He had told his story, and waited for Godfrey’s reply, which came first in a low, suppressed whistle, and then in a merry laugh as he jumped up, and giving his pants a violent shake, said: “I agree with you, father; she is a very remarkable woman, or she would not consent to be my mother and Jule’s; My! won’t she pick her eyes out, and Aunt Christine will help her. Why, _she_ meant to have you herself!” “Who, Christine?” Colonel Schuyler said, aghast at the very idea of wedding a woman whom he detested, even though she was a Rossiter, and the sister of his wife. “Yes, she has set her cap at you ever since mother died, and she came up to Hampstead with all her wraps and confounded drugs, and raised Cain generally,” Godfrey replied, and his father smiled a pleased kind of smile, and, man-like, was conscious of a new interest in the woman who had “set her cap for him,” while at the same time he felt intense satisfaction in thinking of Edith in all her youth and brilliant beauty, and comparing her with Aunt Christine, whose body was one great receptacle of drugs, and who, Godfrey said, wore two flannel wraps in the summer, and four in the winter, besides shawls and scarfs innumerable. Godfrey’s preference was evidently for Edith, and so his father said to him: “You do not object. You like Miss Lyle, I believe.” “Like her? Yes, I rather think I do, and if she’d been younger, or I older, I’d have gone for her myself. She’s the most splendid woman I ever saw, but, by Jove, I’m sorry for her, though, for what with Aunt Christine, and Alice, and Julia, and Tiffe and Em, she’ll have a sorry time.” The colonel frowned darkly, and his eyebrows almost met together as he answered with great dignity: “Everybody in my house must treat my wife with respect; but, Godfrey, perhaps it may be well in your letter home to speak a good word for Miss Lyle, prepare the way, you know. You have great influence over Julia, or at least over Miss Creighton, which amounts to the same thing. I have written, of course, but would like you to do so, too.” “Certainly, with pleasure,” Godfrey said, and there was a merry twinkle in his saucy eyes as he thought of the “hornet’s nest” he would stir up at home. The colonel had that day written to his eldest daughter, Julia, in his usual dignified manner, that he was about to marry Miss Edith Lyle, “a lady of good family, the daughter of a clergyman, the friend and companion of my deceased sister, your late Aunt Sinclair. She possesses many and varied accomplishments, and is, what I consider, a very remarkable person, and I shall expect a kind reception for her, and that all due deference will be paid to her by every member of my household. Break the news to your Aunt Christine, and tell Mrs. Tiffe to have the rooms in the south wing made ready for Mrs. Schuyler. I have written to Perry about repairing them, but she must superintend it.” This was in part the colonel’s letter, while Godfrey’s was widely different.