And so the few days of his second sojourn at Saratoga passed away, not altogether satisfactorily. It was settled that he should return to New York on Saturday night, leaving Saratoga on that evening; and as the Beckards—Hetta was already regarded quite as a Beckard—were to be back to dinner on that day, Mrs. Bell would have an opportunity of telling her wondrous tale. It might be well that Mr. Beckard should see Aaron before his departure. On that Saturday the Beckards did arrive just in time for dinner. It may be imagined that Susan’s appetite was not very keen, nor her manner very collected. But all this passed by unobserved in the importance attached to the various Beckard arrangements which came under discussion. Ladies and gentlemen circumstanced as were Hetta and Mr. Beckard are perhaps a little too apt to think that their own affairs are paramount. But after dinner Susan vanished at once, and when Hetta prepared to follow her, desirous of further talk about matrimonial arrangements, her mother stopped her, and the disclosure was made. “Proposed to her!” said Hetta, who perhaps thought that one marriage in a family was enough at a time. “Yes, my love—and he did it, I must say, in a very honourable way, telling her not to make any answer till she had spoken to me;—now that was very nice; was it not, Phineas?” Mrs. Bell had become very anxious that Aaron should not be voted a wolf. “And what has been said to him since?” asked the discreet Phineas. “Why—nothing absolutely decisive.” Oh, Mrs. Bell! “You see I know nothing as to his means.” “Nothing at all,” said Hetta. “He is a man that will always earn his bread,” said Mr. Beckard; and Mrs. Bell blessed him in her heart for saying it. “But has he been encouraged?” asked Hetta. “Well; yes, he has,” said the widow. “Then Susan I suppose likes him?” asked Phineas. “Well; yes, she does,” said the widow. And the conference ended in a resolution that Phineas Beckard should have a conversation with Aaron Dunn, as to his worldly means and position; and that he, Phineas, should decide whether Aaron might, or might not be at once accepted as a lover, according to the tenor of that conversation. Poor Susan was not told anything of all this. “Better not,” said Hetta the demure. “It will only flurry her the more.” How would she have liked it, if without consulting her, they had left it to Aaron to decide whether or no she might marry Phineas? They knew where on the works Aaron was to be found, and thither Mr. Beckard rode after dinner. We need not narrate at length the conference between the young men. Aaron at once declared that he had nothing but what he made as an engineer, and explained that he held no permanent situation on the line. He was well paid at that present moment, but at the end of summer he would have to look for employment. “Then you can hardly marry quite at present,” said the discreet minister. “Perhaps not quite immediately.”