“Tell your Miss Cahoon,” he wrote, “that I am going to turn Spiritualist right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts of things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but I'll have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to furnish forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole thing will do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and--what's her name--Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going to do with the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off to a wealthy Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself? She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if anyone could. Great idea! What?” His “great idea” was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket. But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after this. We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at “Jasmine Gables.” “Hosy,” said Hephzy, “do you realize the summer is half over? It's the middle of July now.” So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible. “Yes,” she went on. “Our lease of this place is up the first of October. We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we.” “I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all skittles and--and tea.” “That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is a rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing. Hosy,” with a sudden return to seriousness, “what are we goin' to do with--with HER when the time comes for us to go?” “I don't know,” I answered. “Are you going to take her to America with us?” “I don't know.” “Humph! Well, we'll have to know then.” “I suppose we shall; but,” defiantly, “I'm not going to worry about it till the time comes.” “Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the way you have anyway.” “In what way?” “In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why, through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you were older than I was--older in the way you thought and acted, I mean. Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin' tennis and golf and everything! What has got into you?”