He rose as he spoke, and went over to where his mother was sitting. With heightened color, she had picked up her sewing, and bent over it so that her face was half hidden. "Who supposed there was so much sentiment in the family," he remarked. "Well, I must go down town. Good-by. I wish you joy." They kissed each other with a tenderness not customary, for neither was much given to sentimental demonstrations; and Jack went his way. It has been remarked by writers tinged with cynicism that a widow who wishes to remarry is generally able to do a large part of whatever wooing is necessary. In the present case, where the lady had frankly avowed her intention of doing the whole, there was no reason why the culmination should be long delayed. One day soon after the interview between Mrs. Neligage and her son, the widow and Harry Bradish were at the County Club when they chanced to come into the parlor just in time to discover May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, when the lover was kissing his lady's hand. Mrs. Neligage was entirely equal to the situation. "Yes, Mr. Bradish," she observed, looking upward, "you were right, this ceiling is very ugly." "I didn't say anything about the ceiling," he returned, gazing up in amazement, while Dick and May slipped out at another door. She turned to him with a countenance of mischief. "Then you should have said it, stupid!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you see Dick and May?" "I saw them go out. What of it?" "Really, Harry," she said, falling into the name which she had called him in her girlhood, "you should have your wits about you when you stumble on young lovers in a sentimental attitude." "I didn't see what they were doing. I was behind you." "Oh, he had her hand," explained she, extending hers. Bradish took it shyly, looking confused and mystified. The widow laughed in his face. "What are you laughing at?" he asked. "What do you suppose he was doing?" Mrs. Neligage demanded. "Now you have my hand, what are you going to do with it?" He dropped her hand in confusion. "I--I just took it because you gave it to me," he stammered. "I was only going--I was going to--" "Then why in the world didn't you?" she laughed, moving quickly away toward the window which opened upon the piazza. "But I will now," he exclaimed, striding after. "Oh, now it is too late," she declared teasingly. "A woman is like time. She must be taken by the forelock." "But, Mrs. Neligage, Louisa, I was afraid of offending you!" "Nothing offends a woman so much as to be afraid of offending her," was her oracular reply, as she flitted over the sill.