"She could do a better thing, and that is to marry me," exclaimed the colonel. "I'm going to give her a chance, and will tell you the result immediately. I wonder who'll stumble in upon my wooing?" and with mirthful eyes he darted out of the room. "I never knew a man so changed," soliloquized Mrs. Pinckney. "He used to be haughty and reserved: now he talks a great deal, uses slang expressions and romps and plays with the children like any ordinary mortal. One can never tell whether he is in earnest or not. I don't believe he'd have told me if he'd really meant to offer himself." A day or two afterward Miss Featherstone had occasion to go to town. It was exceedingly inconvenient, for she was needed everywhere as usual, but gloves and boots must be replenished, even by impecunious heroines. As she came down Colonel Pinckney handed her into the carriage and followed her. She felt a little annoyed, but supposed he was driving only to the station: however, he sent the coachman home, and when the cars came up he entered and took his seat beside her. "You look depressed, Miss Featherstone: I hope that my going to New York meets with your approbation? I've been neglecting a thousand necessary matters, and the pleasure of your company to-day gave me the necessary incentive." He was so frank as to his motives that Miss Featherstone laid aside her reserve in a measure, and became communicative. "Everything has changed, Colonel Pinckney," she said with a sigh. "Mrs. Pinckney has grown decidedly cool, and I think you have opened my eyes so that I don't love her quite as much as I did. I am sorry: I should rather have been blind. Then--" She paused, feeling that her confidences must go no further. "Then," he continued, "it makes it very embarrassing that the tutor and family physician should both have fallen in love with you." "I think of leaving," she continued, neither admitting nor contradicting his assertion. "Forgive me: you have spoken from the best motives, but I think you have made trouble," she added hesitatingly. "Mrs. Pinckney is now continually on the alert to prevent my working; she will no longer let little Harry sleep in my room; she orders the dinner for the first time since I've been in the house; the children are swooped off by Adele as soon as their school-hours are over; and everything is odd, strange and uncomfortable. I think I must go away. I wrote an advertisement to put in the papers: perhaps you could do it for me?" she said timidly: "I dread going to the offices." "Certainly," he replied courteously, and put it in his pocket.