Miss Josephine was in an unsettled state of mind; for she first placed herself on an ottoman by the fire-place, then got up and went to the window and stood looking out; all the while rattling on of indifferent things, in a rather languid way; then at last came and sank down in a very low position at Wych Hazel's feet on the carpet. She was a pretty girl; might have been extremely pretty, if her very pronounced style of manners had not drawn lines of boldness, almost of coarseness, where the lip should have been soft and the eyebrow modest. The whole expression was dissatisfied and jaded to-day, over and above those lines, which even low spirits could not obliterate. 'It must be awfully nice to have such a place as this all to yourself—house and all;—just to yourself! You needn't be married till you've a mind to. Don't you think it's a great bore to be married?' 'People can always wait,' said Wych Hazel. 'Wait?' said Phinney. 'For what?' 'For such a great bore,' said Hazel, stroking the cat. 'How can you wait?' said Phinney. 'What hinders?' 'Why! you must be married, you know, some time; and it don't do to stay till you can't get a good chance. It's such a bore!' said the poor girl helplessly. Somehow, Hazel's own happiness made her rather tender towards these notes of complaint. 'What do you mean?' she said, leaning down by Phinney. 'I would not take even "a good chance" to be miserable.' 'I'm just in a fix,' said Josephine, 'and I can't get out of it. And I came to see you on purpose to talk. I thought maybe you would have some sympathy for me. Nobody has at home.' 'Sympathy! What about?' 'Papa wants me to marry somebody—who comes pestering me every other day.' Josephine looked disconsolately out of the window. The weary face was eloquent of the system under which she declared herself suffering. 'Somebody you do not like?' said Hazel. 'O I like him—I _like_ him pretty well; he's rather jolly on the whole; but—that's another thing from being married, you know. I like very well to have him round,—bringing me flowers and doing everything I bid him; I _have_ made rather a slave of him, that's a fact; it's awfully ridiculous! He doesn't dare say his soul's his own, if I say it's mine, and I snub him in every other thing. But then— it's another thing to go and marry him. Maybe he wouldn't like me to snub him, if I was his wife. Mamma don't dare do it to papa, I know; unless she does it on the sly.' Hazel drew back rather coldly. 'I think it is extremely probable he would not like it,' she said. 'He is not much of a man, to stand it now.' 'Not?' cried Josephine. 'Why what is the good of a man if you can't snub him? And if a man pretends to like you, of course he'll stand anything you give him. O I like the bridle figure in the German— that suits me;—when I'm the driver; but the Germans are all over for this season. Aren't you awfully sorry?'