"Let the children play together, my dear," she said, in conjugal seclusion to her husband, the Hon. Budlong Dinks, who needed only sufficient capacity and a proper opportunity to have been one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists. He thought he was such already. There was, indeed, plenty of diplomacy in the family, and that most skillful of all diplomatic talents, the management of distinguished diplomatists, was not unknown there. Fanny Newt had made the proper inquiries. The result was that there were rumors--"How _do_ such stories start?" asked Mrs. Budlong Dinks of all her friends who were likely to repeat the rumor--that it was a family understanding that Mr. Alfred Dinks and his cousin Hope were to make a match. "And they _do_ say," said Mrs. Dinks, "what ridiculous things people are! and they _do_ say that, for family reasons, we are going to keep it all quiet! What a world it is!" The next day Mrs. Cod told Mrs. Dod, in a morning call, that Mrs. Budlong Dinks said that the engagement between her son Alfred and his cousin Hope Wayne was kept quiet for family reasons. Before sunset of that day society was keeping it quiet with the utmost diligence. These little stories were brought by little birds to New York, so that when Mrs. Dinks arrived the air was full of hints and suggestions, and the name of Hope Wayne was not unknown. Farther acquaintance with Mr. Alfred Dinks had revealed to Miss Fanny that there was a certain wealthy ancestor still living, in whom the Dinkses had an interest, and that the only participant with them in that interest was Miss Hope Wayne. That was enough for Miss Fanny, whose instinct at once assured her that Mrs. Dinks designed Hope Wayne for her son Alfred, in order that the fortune should be retained in the family. Miss Fanny having settled this, and upon farther acquaintance with Mr. Dinks having discovered that she might as well undertake the matrimonial management of him as of any other man, and that the Burt fortune would probably descend, in part at least, to the youth Alfred, she decided that the youth Alfred must marry her. But how should Hope Wayne be disposed of? Fanny reflected. She lived in Delafield. Brother Abel, now nearly nineteen--not a childish youth--not unhandsome--not too modest--lived also in Delafield. Had he ever met Hope Wayne? By skillful correspondence, alluding to the solitude of the country, et cetera, and his natural wish for society, and what pleasant people were there in Delafield, Fanny had drawn her lines around Abel to carry the fact of his acquaintance, if possible, by pure strategy. In reply, Abel wrote about many things--about Mrs. Kingo and Miss Broadbraid--the Sutlers and Grabeaus--he praised the peaceful tone of rural society, and begged Fanny to beware of city dissipation; but not a word of old Burt and Hope Wayne.