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 once a member of a family and involved in outside interests. With every wish to be friendly and chatty, they did not want to submit their difficulties to the arbitration of family discussion until they were sure it couldn't do any harm. Sally could not be quite certain whether or not she were in love with Austin, and until she settled that point for herself she did not really want any parental counsel. So now, in answer to her mother's question, she dropped a veil like a mask over her open countenance and replied that Mr. Bevans seemed to be "all right."

This wouldn't do for Mrs. Boyd at all. "But describe him, describe him," she said. She would have been content to be a bed-ridden invalid for the rest of her life if every one she knew would have contracted to come and give her every detail of his own adventures. "Is he young or old?"

"He's about twenty-five," said Sally, reluctantly. "What?" said her brother, starting out of a dreamy contemplation of Elise.

"He's older than that," said Elise.

"I should hope so," said George.

"He's twenty-eight," Elise went on.

"What?" cried George again.