“He’s got a rose she gave him,—never mind how I know,—and he keeps it wrapped up in tissue”—she pronounced it “tisher”—“paper in his waistcoat pocket. He leaves it in there sometimes when he changes his clothes. And Ada says—you know that picture in the magazine that we all said looked so like Miss Linden? He’s got it in a little frame. Ada says that it tumbles out from underneath his pillow once in a while when she’s taking the covers off; I suppose the child puts it there at night and forgets it in the morning. Ada just slips it half-way back again when she makes up the bed, as if she’d overlooked it. He never says anything, and of course she doesn’t, either.” “I hope the girl will not take his attentions seriously,” said the mother, alarmed. She had known all this before, but it was a fashion of the family to talk over and over what they already knew. “I _hope_ she will not take him seriously.” “Mother! They’re both so young.” Ada, who had been leaning forward with her face in her hands and her chin upturned at a statuesque angle, spoke for the first time. “Oh, that’s very well!” Mrs. Snow tossed her head as one with experience. “He is, of course, nothing but a mere boy at nineteen, but a girl of twenty is years older. When a girl is twenty, she goes in society with women of _any_ age. I was married myself at eighteen—not that I should wish either of my daughters to do so.” “Well, you can feel safe about that, mother,” interpolated Ada. “William is very attractive, dear boy, and I could not blame any girl for being somewhat captivated by him; I should be sorry if Miss Linden allowed her affections to be engaged. She may not know that his career is mapped out before him. William will not be in a position to marry before he is thirty-six. William is——” “The people are coming from the train,” interposed Miss Bertha, waving back one thin hand to stop her mother’s discourse—which she could have repeated backward—and scanning the hurrying file in the dusk across the street. “Now you can tell how long the days are getting. Ada, come here. Mrs. Leverich has on her new furs—the ones her husband gave her. Don’t they make her look stout? There are the Brentons, I think that’s a bag of coffee he’s carrying. He has a long, narrow package, too, with square ends—perhaps _she’s_ been buying corsets; if not, it must be a bottle of whisky. And there—who is that? Oh, I thought it was Mr. Alexander in a new coat; of course it’s too early for him—they say he’s been making money hand over hand lately. And here comes—why it’s George Sutton! Ada, Ada, bow! he’s looking. He sees us waving—ah!” There was a pause, in which an interested flush appeared on the cheeks of both sisters.