"It's about as bad as it can be," said she. "It seems papa has made himself personally responsible for the Lightning Railroad and borrowed money to put into it, and then there's something or other about the stock he borrowed on running down till it isn't worth anything. I don't understand a word of it, only I know that the upshot of it all is, papa is going to give up all he has and begin over. This house and furniture will be put into a broker's hands and advertised for sale. All the pictures are going to Goupil's sale rooms and will make quite a nice gallery." "Except yours in this room," said I. "Ah well! I thought we should keep these, but I find papa is very sensitive about giving up everything that is really his--and these are his in fact. I bought them with his money. At all events, let them go. We won't care, will we?" "Not so long as we have each other," said I. "For my part, though I'm sorry for you all, yet I bless the stroke that brings you to me. You see we must make a new home at once, you and I, isn't it so? Now, hear me; let us be married in June, the month of months, and for our wedding journey we'll go up to the mountains and see my mother. It's perfectly lovely up there. Shall it be so?" "As you will, Harry. And it will be all the better so, because Ida is going to sail for Paris sooner than she anticipated." "Why does Ida do that?" "Well, you see, Ida has been the manager of papa's foreign correspondence and written all the letters for three years past, and papa has paid her a large salary, of which she has spent scarcely anything. She has invested it to make her studies with in Paris. She offered this to papa, but he would not take it. He told her it was no more his than the salary of any other of his clerks, and that if she wouldn't make him very unhappy she would take it and go to Paris; and by going immediately she could arrange some of his foreign business. So you see she will stay to see us married and then sail." "We'll be married in the same church where we put up the Easter crosses," said I. "How little we dreamed it then," she said, "and that reminds me, sir, where's my glove that you stole on that occasion? You naughty boy, you thought nobody saw you, but somebody did." "Your glove," said I, "is safe and sound in my reliquary along with sundry other treasures." "You unprincipled creature! what are they? Confess." "Well! a handkerchief." "Wretched man! and besides?" "Two hair pins, a faded rose, two beads that dropped from your croquet suit, and a sleeve button. Then there is a dry sprig of myrtle that you dropped, on, let me see, the 14th of April, when you were out at the Park in one of those rustic arbors." "And you were sitting glowering like an owl in an ivy bush. I remember I saw you there." We both found ourselves laughing very much louder than circumstances seemed really to require, when Eva heard her father's footstep and checked herself.