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 good place—one's sure that he's not just round the corner of the verandah making one of my three cousins miserable."

"How do you mean?"

"Why—they all love him. Can't you see it? I don't mean figuratively. Not a bit. They're in love with him, poor dears!"

"Nonsense! not really?" Lawrence laughed incredulously.

"Yes—really. It's a rather dismal sort of love—they've kept their hearts in pickle for such an age, you know—old pickles aren't good, either. I've no patience with old maids who fall in love and make fools of themselves!"

"Perhaps they can't help it," suggested the young man. "Nobody can help falling in love, you know."

"No," answered Fanny, rather doubtfully. "Perhaps not. I don't know. It depends."

"People don't generally try to keep themselves from falling in love," remarked Lawrence, with the air of a philosopher. "It's more apt to be the other way. They are generally trying to make some one else fall in love with them. That's the hard thing."