"Why don't you speak to Mrs. Dr. Magruder, then? She is a power in that family." "No; I'll talk to Mr. Magruder. It's hard, but it has to be done. And see here, Max, don't you poke fun at Mrs. Magruder. She's a first-rate woman, and those things Dr. Jones told about her are the most rascally kind of lies. If you'll excuse me, I'll go down and see the old man now. I might as well settle the thing at once." This evening, while we were waiting for tea, Bob made a report. The paternal Magruder, it seems, had already considered the subject carefully, and was not by any means as much surprised by Mr. Parker's statement as the latter expected he would be. Bob was amazed to find that although the old gentleman during the courtship had appeared wholly unconscious of the fact that his daughter was particularly intimate with the youth, yet somehow he seemed now to have had all the time a very clear perception of the state of the case. "I thought he would get excited and, maybe, show a little emotion," said Bob, "but blame me if he didn't sit there and take it as coolly as if such things happened to him every day. And you know, when I began to tell him how much I thought of Bessie, he soused down on me and brought me back to prose with a question about the size of my income. But it's all right. He said he would be glad to have me a member of his family, and then he called in Bessie, and gave us a kind of a blessing and advised us not to be in a hurry about getting married." "Very good advice, too. There is no need of haste. You ought to have plenty of time to think the matter over." "Think it over!" exclaimed Bob, indignantly. "Why, I _have_ thought it over. You don't suppose I'd be such a fool as to engage myself to a girl without thinking seriously about it?" "Certainly not; but marriage is a very solemn thing, and it should be undertaken advisedly. It is probable, I suppose, that you would never, under any circumstances, marry any woman but Bessie Magruder?" "Nev-er; no, never!" "You don't believe in second marriages, then?" "Certainly not." "They _do_ get a man into trouble very often. Did I ever tell you about old Sparks, of Pencadder Hundred?" [Illustration] "I think not," said Bob. [Illustration]