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 is all the fashion. I heard Mrs. Van tell old Mrs. Joy that it was going to be a marrying year; so you'll be sure to catch it," answered Rose, reefing her skirts; for, with all his training, Mac still found it difficult to keep his long legs out of the man-traps.

"It doesn't look like a painful disease; but I must be careful, for I've no time to be ill now. What are the symptoms?" asked Mac, trying to combine business with pleasure, and improve his mind while doing his duty.

"If you ever come back I'll tell you," laughed Rose, as he danced away into the wrong corner, bumped smartly against another gentleman, and returned as soberly as if that was the proper figure.

"Well, tell me 'how not to do it,'" he said, subsiding for a moment's talk when Rose had floated to and fro in her turn.

"Oh! you see some young girl who strikes you as particularly charming,—whether she really is or not doesn't matter a bit,—and you begin to think about her a great deal, to want to see her, and to get generally sentimental and absurd," began Rose, finding it difficult to give a diagnosis of the most mysterious disease under the sun.

"Don't think it sounds enticing. Can't I find an antidote somewhere; for if it is in the air this year I'm sure to get it, and it may be fatal," said Mac, who felt pretty lively and liked to make Rose merry; for he suspected that she had a little trouble from a hint Dr. Alec had given him.