"Sit down and rest, Florence," said her mother. "I'm afraid you play too hard when Patty and the boys are here. Do sit down quietly and rest yourself a little while." And as Florence obeyed, Mrs. Atwater turned to her husband, resuming: "Well, that's what _I_ said. I told Aunt Carrie I thought the same way about it that _you_ did. Of course nobody _ever_ knows what Julia's going to do next, and nobody needs to be surprised at anything she does do. Ever since she came home from school, about four-fifths of all the young men in town have been wild about her--and so's every old bachelor, for the matter of that!" "Yes," Mr. Atwater added. "And every old widower, too." His wife warmly accepted the amendment. "And every old widower, too," she said, nodding. "Rather! And of course Julia's just done exactly as she pleased about everything, and naturally she's going to do as she pleases about _this_." "Well, of course it's her own affair, Mollie," Mr. Atwater said mildly. "She couldn't be expected to consult the whole Atwater family connection before she----" "Oh, no," she agreed. "I don't say she could. Still, it _is_ rather upsetting, coming so suddenly like this, when not one of the family has ever seen him--never even heard his very name before." [Illustration: _"'Well, men ... I don't want to see any loafin' around here, men. I expect I'll have a pretty good newspaper this week.'"_] "Well, that part of it isn't especially strange, Mollie. He was born and brought up in a town three hundred miles from here. I don't see just how we _could_ have heard his name unless he visited here or got into the papers in some way." Mrs. Atwater seemed unwilling to yield a mysterious point. She rocked decorously in her rocking-chair, shook her head, and after setting her lips rigidly, opened them to insist that she could never change her mind: Julia had acted very abruptly. "Why couldn't she have let her poor father know at least a _few_ days before she did?" Mr. Atwater sighed. "Why, she explains in her letter that she only knew it, herself, an hour before she wrote." "Her poor father!" his wife repeated commiseratingly. "Why, Mollie, I don't see how father's especially to be pitied." "Don't you?" said Mrs. Atwater. "That old man, to have to live in that big house all alone, except a few negro servants?" "Why, no! About half the houses in the neighbourhood, up and down the street, are fully occupied by close relatives of his: I doubt if he'll be really as lonely as he'd like to be. And he's often said he'd give a great deal if Julia had been a plain, unpopular girl. I'm strongly of the opinion, myself, that he'll be pleased about this. Of course it may upset him a little at first." "Yes; I think it will!" Mrs. Atwater shook her head forebodingly. "And he isn't the only one it's going to upset."