Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/111

108 One evening, at a large party, Roger found himself approached by an elderly lady who had known him from his boyhood and for whom he had a traditional regard, but with whom of late years he had relaxed his intercourse, from a feeling that, being a very worldly old woman, her influence on Nora might be pernicious. She had never smiled on the episode of which Nora was the heroine, and she hailed Roger's reappearance as a sign that this episode was at an end and that he had repented of his abrupt eccentricity. She was somewhat cynical in her shrewdness, and, so far as she might, she handled matters without gloves.

"I am glad to see you have found your wits again," she said, "and that that forlorn little orphan—Dora, Flora, what's her name?—has not altogether made a fool of you. You want to marry; come, don't deny it. You can no more remain unmarried than I can remain standing here. Go ask that little man for his chair. With your means and your disposition and all the rest of it, you ought by this time to be setting a good example. But it 's never too late to mend. I have got the thing for you. Have you been introduced to Miss Sands? Who is Miss Sands? There you are to the life! Miss Sands is Miss Sands, the young lady in whose honor we are here convened. She is staying with my sister. You must have heard of her. New York, but good New York; so pretty that she might be as silly as you please, yet as clever and good as if she were as plain as I. She is everything a man can want. If you have not seen her it 's providential. Come; don't protest for the sake of protesting. I have thought it all out.