"Well," rejoined I, "my health, my education, my power of doing literary work, are this capital. They secure to me for the next year an income equal to that of seventy thousand dollars at ten per cent. Now, I think a capital of that amount invested in a _man_, is quite as safe as the same sum invested in any stocks whatever. It seems to me that in our country a _man_ who knows how to take care of his health is less likely to become unproductive in income than any stock you can name." "There is something in that, I admit," replied Mr. Van Arsdel. "And there's something in _this_, too, papa," said Eva, who entered at this moment and could not resist her desire to dip her oar in the current of conversation, "and that is, that an investment that you have got to take for better or worse and can't sell or get rid of all your life, had better be made in something you are sure you will like." "And are you sure of that in this case, Pussy?" said her father, pinching her cheek. "Tolerably, as men go. Mr. Henderson is the least tiresome man of my acquaintance, and you know, papa, it's time I took somebody; you don't want me to go into a convent, do you?" "How about poor Mr. Sydney?" "Poor Mr. Sydney has just called, and I have invited him to a private audience and convinced him that I am not, in the least, the person to make him happy--and he is one of the sort that feel that it is of the last importance that he should be made happy." "Well, well! Mr. Henderson, I presume you have seen, in the course of your observations, that this is one of the houses where the women rule. You and Eva will have to settle it with her mother." "Then I am to understand," exclaimed I, "that, as far as _you_ are concerned----!" "I _submit_," said Mr. Van Arsdel. "The ayes have it, then," said Eva. "I'm not so sure of that, young lady," said Mr. Van Arsdel, "if I may judge by the way your mother lamented to me last night." "Oh, that's all Aunt Maria! You see, papa, this is an age of revolution, and there's going to be a revolution in the Aunt Maria dynasty in our house. She has governed mamma and all the rest of us long enough, and now she must go down and I must rule. Harry and I are going to start a new era and have things all our own way. I'm going to crown him King, and he then will crown me Queen, and then we shall proceed to rule and reign in our own dominions, and Aunt Maria, and Mrs. Grundy, and all the rest of them, may help themselves; they can't hinder us. We shall be happy in our own way, without consulting them." "Well, well!" said Mr. Van Arsdel, following with an amused eye, a pirouette Eva executed at the conclusion of her speech, "you young folks are venturesome." "Yes, papa, I am 'The woman who dared,'" said Eva. "'Nothing venture, nothing have,'" quoted I. "Eva knows no more about managing money than a this year's robin," said her father.