"It is all very well, but this sort of thing does make a fellow feel such a conceited fool." "If I were you I would not think about it at all," she returned, in her sensible way. "The neighborhood will expect something of the kind, and we owe a little to other people; then it pleases your mother to make a fuss, as you call it, and it would be too ungrateful to disappoint her." "Well, perhaps you are right," he returned, in a slightly mollified tone, for he was a modest young fellow, and the whole business had occasioned him some soreness of spirit. "Take it all in all, one has an awful lot to go through in life: there are the measles, you know, and whooping cough, and the dentist, and one's examination, and no end of unpleasant things; but to be made by one's own mother to feel like an idiot for a whole afternoon! Never mind; it can be got through somehow," finished the young philosopher, with a sigh that sent Nan into a fit of laughter. CHAPTER II. DICK OBJECTS TO THE MOUNTAINS. "Shall we have our usual stroll?" asked Phillis, as Nan and Dick joined her at the window. This was one of the customs at Glen Cottage. When any such fitting escort offered itself, the three girls would put on their hats, and, regardless of the evening dews and their crisp white dresses, would saunter, under Dick's guidance through the quiet village, or down and up the country roads "just for a breath of air," as they would say. It is only fair to Mrs. Challoner's views of propriety to say that she would have trusted her three pretty daughters to no other young man but Dick; and of late certain prudential doubts had crossed her mind. It was all very well for Phillis to say Dick was Dick, and there was an end of it. After all, he belonged to the phalanx of her enemies, those shadowy invaders of her hearth that threatened her maternal peace. Dick was not a boy any longer; he had outgrown his hobbledehoy ways; the slight sandy moustache that he so proudly caressed was not a greater proof of his manhood than the undefinable change that had passed over his manners. Mrs. Challoner began to distrust these evening strolls, and to turn over in her own mind various wary pretexts for detaining Nan on the next occasion. "Just this once, perhaps, it does not matter," she murmured to herself, as she composed herself to her usual nap. "We shall not be long, little mother; so you must not be dull," Dulce had said, kissing her lightly over her eyes. This was just one of the pleasant fictions at the cottage,--one of those graceful little deceptions that are so harmless in families.