So, after all, Carolyn was just like other girls. Why, of course she was. Why shouldn't she be? And Maxwell was now very wealthy. Prudence sat up straight. She thrust her handkerchief into the pocket of her little cycling-jacket. "I beg your pardon," she said, with great suavity. "I didn't know but that you might be willing to tell me. I suppose I must wait, however, until the announcement is made." Having said this, she rose and brushed the sand from her garments. She remarked that she would run up to the house and have a spin with Leander. Carolyn walked up with her, and the two conversed affably, and parted with great politeness on both sides. But as Prudence mounted her wheel outside, her hands trembled, and she was white instead of being flushed. When Leander returned, he informed his mother and sister that Prue wasn't any good any more, and that he had beat her all holler without half trying. Also, as an afterthought, he said they had met Lord Maxwell on his wheel at the turn in the east road, and that the Britisher had gone on home with Prue. CHAPTER XVIII. LEANDER AS A MEANS. You don't marry a woman because she is religious or is inclined to tell the truth, or has this or that trait of mind. You are much more likely to fall deeply in love and to ask her to be your wife because of a certain droop of a lock of hair over her forehead; or perhaps a particular trick of smiling lips caught your fancy and set it on fire. Why, I know a man who begged a woman to be his wife just because he was convinced that she had the most delightful little lisp in the world. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she refused him, and he has since united himself to a woman whose speech is remarkable for clearness of tone. I often wonder whether he wishes that she lisped, or if he has decided that he can be happy without a lisping wife. And how remarkable it is that, when once you have won your love, the little thing which attracted you, for some mysterious reason, ceases to be attractive, and you wish her mind was something more in sympathy with yours, or that her temperament was better fitted to yours. Ah, that matter of temperament! One can put up with a good deal that is wrong if only the temperaments be rightly adjusted. I am not going to claim these as particularly my thoughts. They were the thoughts that were going rather indefinitely through Lawrence's mind one afternoon as he lounged in a little sailboat opposite the hamlet where he was spending the summer. His wife had gone on an all-day's cycling trip with Lord Maxwell. The two had left the hotel at about ten in the morning. As Prudence had put on her gloves before leaving her room, she had remarked to her husband that she hoped he would amuse himself in some manner while she was gone. There was Caro only three miles away; he might call on her if he were not so odd.